


Toxic

by WinterDusk



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Anger, Grief/Mourning, Language Barrier, M/M, Modern Era, Post-Season/Series 05 Finale, Resurrection, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-23
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:28:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 35
Words: 83,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26073424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinterDusk/pseuds/WinterDusk
Summary: Arthur wakes on the shores of Avalon.  It’s fifteen hundred years into his future, and he is alone and lost:  he thinks he might just hate Merlin for that.  For what’s the point to having survived, if everything he knows is ground down to dust?Yet as time passes and Arthur starts to find his way in the world, new questions arise to consume him.  Why does no one seem to know anything about magic in this far-flung future?  Why have the Sidhe chosennowof all times to return him?And why do all the stories say Merlin should have been waiting for him?
Relationships: Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 264
Kudos: 272





	1. Prologue

Elfrida goes to bed expecting bad things to happen.

As she’s not psychic, the type of bad thing she’s anticipating is divorce. That, and a worsening of the pain across her upper back; a pain arising from too many hours crowded into too small a plane seat, all so that they could ‘get home in time’.

Her father-in-law, Elfrida knows, suspects that this is shorthand for the-English-girl-is-sick-of-rice, which is unfair, because she _isn’t_. There’s never been a meal put in front of her, freshly prepared by someone else, that she’d _ever_ turn her nose up to.

But that just circles back to her possibly-imminent divorce.

Because, seven years ago, at a university party that ran both louder and longer than was her usual wont, Elfrida had been making the rounds, trying to put herself out there, just like everyone had told her she should. Had been struggling with small talk where entire conversations seemed to simply evaporate because either her words never carried or, more likely, her conversation wasn’t quite… so. She’d turned away from the latest in a long night of disappointments set to sting her insecurities and looked into the face of the most… beautifully made-up woman in the whole room.

Needless to say, she’d uttered something hideously formal like, _Hi. I’m Elfrida. Are you a friend of Georgie?_

(Yes, she’s taken actual lessons in socialising since then. Work had paid. _Networking training_ , they’d called it.)

But Mariko had dimpled, then said it was a most enchanting name.

It _is_ a good name. Though one that’s got Elfrida more mockery over the years than perhaps her mother, in a fit of romantic ideology (or, perhaps, simple insanity), had imagined when she decided to name her unborn daughter for a long-dead queen.

For the _biggest_ problem with being granted a long-forgotten Anglo-Saxon name, is that people tend to end up with _expectations_ because of it. Women named for fairy tales and myth aren’t meant to happily eat the same meal day in and day out, because they _lack the imagination to get bored_. They aren’t meant to wear loose and comfortable trouser suits or to like long, neat rows of numbers. When they create their masterpieces, it’s meant to be in water-colours or poetry, not lines upon lines of perfectly precise code.

As for women who are _actually_ like Elfrida is on the inside...?

They’re not meant to look into the face of a woman wearing rough crystals in her hair and open-toed sandals in the middle of winter and think: _beautiful_.

They’re not meant to hear that woman say: _Oh, I just love your British mythology! My mother’s side has two shrine maidens in it, and my father’s grandfather – he didn’t stay at the end of the war; it was a bit of a scandal – was quarter Cherokee. Or it could have been Sioux, we’re not sure. So, you see, all the ley lines on this island really resonate with me._ and want to stay for more.

The argument over their wedding should have been 'Japan or the UK', not whether it should be white dresses or a mountain trek led by some new-age hippie. Not that there’d been an argument. Because when Mari’s face filled with light and hope and delight like that-

Well. When Mariko smiled, all the numbers in the world danced. Every logical prioritisation restructured itself, and always for the better.

Mari smiles; and Elfrida falls in love. Again. More. Forever.

So it is that they’ve taken a nearly-too-tight-of-a-connection flight home, after an almost offensively short visit to the in-laws, all so that Mari can go visiting to some abandoned spot on the Yorkshire Moors to welcome in the Solstice morning with a ritual that Elfrida hasn’t bothered feigning interest in.

Somewhere along the route through their marriage, Mari’s stopped asking Elfrida along on these trips. And maybe Mari’s not been wrong to. Because, unfortunately, when it comes to living for fantasy, her name’s the only whimsical part of Elfrida.

It’s late. All Elfrida wants is right now is to take a long, hot bath (achieved); to stretch out in her bed (achieved); and to fall into a perfectly peaceable sleep that will _not_ culminate in being woken up to ‘enjoy’ the dawn (work in progress). She wants this with her wife at her side (failed).

Mari’s not here.

She tells herself that this is temporary and knows that it is somewhat true. Because Mari will be back in the morning as sure as the sun rises. But whether she will come bearing coffee and smiles and warm chocolate croissants, or whether there’ll be that little frown between her brows, the one that always breaks Elfrida’s heart… that’s beyond Elfrida’s ability to know.

Their growing dissonance churns through Elfrida’s thoughts, and she can’t make it mean anything good, no matter how much she wants it to.

She falls asleep almost feeling the Earth spinning under her frantic calculations. As she imagines the planet’s motion, her mind recalls the numbers from a long-ago documentary: a thousand miles an hour on its own axis; thirty kilometres every single second about its sun. Unfathomable speeds as it, accompanied by stars and moons and dust and _matter_ , charge about the entirety of the Milky Way…

What Elfrida _doesn’t_ envision as her thoughts slip to sleep, is that as the Earth goes, magic spills from it. But the magic doesn’t care for the knowledge or ignorance of mere humans: it flows non-the-less.

Bright and light; golden and full of hope; strands formed in a hundred thousand moments of magic stream behind the Earth. They snarl into ropes of raw potential that mark out paths and patterns of fate that span entire universes.

The Earth is not alone in her display, and the magic she spins out is but one thread among many, forming a tapestry of combined destinies that stretch across entire multiverses; rich and complex and monitored by forces (Norns, Fates, Goddesses, _others_ ) more aptly placed than most to appreciate them. Certainly better placed than Elfrida.

_If_ Elfrida had been a seer, then maybe she’d have felt the strands of other peoples’ fates passing above her as she slept. Would have tossed and turned as she felt them fray against her own destiny.

She might even have dreamt of those others. Of one asleep in a nest of enchantments, while another lay lost to the world in cold iron. Of a lady rocked by waves, or of a man whose dreams echo with the distant sounds of the forest.

But Elfrida is far from being a seer. She sleeps surprisingly well for a woman seriously fretting over her imminent divorce and wakes refreshed.

For a while she lies there, watching the sun flow, brilliant and warm, into the room. As she watches it, her contentment slowly ebbs into unease. It takes her time to place the source of her unease: that though the sun is long since risen, Mariko has not come home.

It takes Elfrida three days to get the police to file a missing person’s report.


	2. Part 1, Chapter 1:  Arthur

The first time Arthur wakes is an unmitigated disaster.

The second time is better, in so much as he’s clearly drugged, and thus presumably under the influence of one of Gaius’s potions. Certainly the fog over his thoughts and the blur to his vision feel familiar, even as the echoing noise around him and a certain bitter tang to the air are nothing but unknown.

It’s an effort to roll his head to one side, though surprisingly not one which hurts.

Maybe he shouldn’t have bothered. Nothing he discerns makes sense. There’s… light. Lots of it. Too much for the cool and shade of the physician’s rooms. Around him, Arthur’s aware of the movements of a great many people, all apparently busy on tasks that have reassuringly little to do with him. Voices sound, clear as a bell, but their words are meaningless.

What happened?

Vaguely, he remembers some sort of impact; being flung through the air and looking up into a sky scarred with slash-mark clouds. It feels like the type of memory he should worry over more, but compared to everything else – to Camlaan and the pain that stalked him since; to that endless darkness sliced through only with glittering lies; to Merlin…

_No._ Don’t _think about Merlin._

There’d been water, too. _That_ he remembers; the thought ironically leaving his throat parched and dry. Slogging out of a lake in full armour is no task to be undertaken lightly. For a moment, he’d been unreasonably certain that he’d been saved from a sword-thrust only to negate it all by drowning.

Maybe everything to follow since (the speed and the noise and the colour) is but a simple fever-dream? One brought about by lung contagion from inhaling the lake’s waters when a more sensible king would have chosen good, clean air?

How can he near drown himself, yet now be so thirsty?

He thinks to call someone over – Merlin, his mind supplies unhelpfully – to bear him a cup. For surely that’s the right thing to do? Water, and thence news of Camelot.

Instead, his eyes drift shut.

It’s the third time he awakes that he _truly_ begins to understand his peril.


	3. Part 1, Chapter 2:  The Tattooed Attendant

It’s been a humiliating day so far. From what little sense Arthur can make of sun’s angle, it’s a day barely started.

With the rising brightness, the day draws a pathetic kind of aching fog across Arthur’s thoughts, and apparently his leg’s in little better state than his head. Bandages are wound thickly around his left upper thigh, and the thick muscle there pounds in time to his pulse. His fall that morning didn’t do him any good, though he’s certainly been injured worse in the past.

No; pain is not today’s problem. Rather confusion is.

He wants to curl up on the cot he’s been banished to. The ache to pull his knees in towards his chest is born of a desire to make himself scarce to all the eyes around him and so shouldn’t be given into even if his leg could bend enough to permit it. More than the injury to his leg however, the problem with _any_ attempt to vanish is the shear density of people here. There are eight cots in this room alone. Each one – including his own – is occupied. Three of the eight are currently doing the added service of entertaining what can only be described as visitors. Boisterous or cowed according to their natures, these visitors have come to talk with Arthur’s new compatriots.

Arthur can’t understand a single word they speak.

The bed-bound people in this room are ill, that much is plain to see. Judging from the attitudes of those around them – the visitors and the blue-garbed ladies in attendance alike – whatever ails them is currently under treatment rather than infliction. With his head and his leg how they are, it should be no surprise that Arthur has been fitted in amongst them. Yet, he cannot feel at ease, for nothing here is right, not even down to the clothing.

Reminded of the tunic he’d been clad in while unconscious, Arthur tugs at the awkward neckline. Whatever’s become of his own garments is uncertain; an ignorance that is currently beyond his ability to clarify. But the thin and brittle-feeling fabric of the tunic and trousers does little to set him at peace.

He’s been on edge since awaking.

Being woken to a jolt of fear – feeling grasping, tiny hands groping at his flesh – was bad. It had quickly gotten worse for being followed with pain, violence, a mad scramble and a fall.

The subsequent distance of several hours' calm has allowed Arthur re-interpret those jumbled impressions as a tussle with the assistants followed by tumbling from his cot. So, apparently he started the day in a panic-fuelled fight with women. Not a glorious start to his time among these healers.

For he hadn’t been wrong earlier, when he’d half-woken. He’s in a physician’s space. But it’s an answer which raises more questions than it solves, for what physician could command such a hall as this? Who could fill it with wonders: sheets fit for a prince; cots of carefully burnished if uncomfortable metalwork; walls of a strange and endless green hue that’s surely never been seen in nature; and… magic?

And who could make their place in a citadel like no other Arthur has ever chanced to see?

He’s seen little enough of the town he’s now resident in. Just a glimpse when he made it to the room’s window earlier. The physician’s assistants – he’s yet to meet the physician – have made it plain enough since then, though actions if not spoken communication, that he is not to leave his cot again.

In truth, if he weren’t banished to it, Arthur’s not certain that he’d _want_ to leave his space here. For although the window is only one cot over from him, the journey to the view outside had been near enough to leave him on his knees.

(What a window it had been! Three immense stretches of glass, each single pane of it as long as a child lying at rest and near as tall as Arthur’s shoulder. Perfect glass, smooth and clear, without a single swirl or waver and – where Camelot prided herself on the beauty and elegance of the lead-work holding her windows together – here the glass is strung though with wires of perfect, uniform gauge, swallowed deep into the thickness of the glass itself. _That_ Arthur wants to go and admire once more. The city outside however…)

Apparently he is not well. Simply reaching the window had been arduous. Returning from it, impossible. He’d had to slump, dizzy and weak, against one of the assistants, relying on her strength to get him back.

He’s not entirely certain what he’s done to land himself in this place, but it pales into insignificance compared to the truth that he doesn’t even know _where_ this place is, nor how he arrived.

It’s Rome, possibly. Or Egypt. One of the ancient territorial powers; strange and unknowable and majestic.

He’s never again going to mock Geoffrey for his awe of those empires. Not if they can build like this: structures with sheer cliff-faces that stretch, apparently further than any forest, as far as his eyes could see.

(He’s never going to mock Geoffrey again, unless he _can get back to Camelot_. Which he will. Just as soon as he gets his headache under control and finds someone who can speak a knowable language.)

It must be the magic that helps them build. They don’t even hide it here. In the bed across from him, an aging man is talking into a box that _talks back_. Above the hall’s door, in shapes larger than a man’s hand, numbers shift and reform in a glowing, furnace red. Even the visiting children are shrouded in enchantments: shoes that sparkle; colours that have never existed; _things_ that they hold and play with and squabble over until inciting parental reprimand, yet that serve no apparent purpose other than to bewitch them.

There are _so many_ people here. How can they all survive? Surely there must be famine?

Besides his cot there is a cabinet and a chair. The chair is covered in some pale fabric which has a texture almost utterly unlike leather. The cabinet is shiny in a way that no wood Arthur has ever seen should be. On its top, there is only a cup and a jug. The jug contains water. Arthur has drunk a cupful. It’s pure and sweet and, as near as he can tell, undrugged. He’d wanted to down the entire vessel.

He’s not certain how long he’ll have to make the water last.

Certainly, when breakfast was brought round, there’d been none for him to eat. As it isn't polite to snatch plates from the elderly and frail, he’s been left with hunger gnarling away at him, filling him with waking nightmares.

For what if he _is_ a prisoner here? What if they decide _never_ to feed him?

(What if it’s another game of the Sidhe?)

He looks at the visitors all around. The freedom with which they come and go is undeniable. Surely if they kept prisoners here, there’d be a tighter watch?

Arthur feels his pulse start to slow. His headache eases. His questions do not.

He touches the empty place on his hand; a gesture he doesn’t even recognise making until he feels for the rings that he’s never been without. And though he knows that he _longs_ for Excalibur and the protection she represents, it’s not the loss of the blade that leaves him empty now. No. It’s _everything else_.

Nothing here makes _any_ sense, and all of it bubbles over with magic.

One of the attendants is heading over to him, her face determined and hands busy with a small case. For a moment Arthur hopes that she’s going to pass on by and move to bother his neighbour at the end of the room.

She doesn’t.

She’s speaking; face falling into a smile that is trying not to look forced. It’s clear that she’s waiting to treat him, for all that she looks so young. Surely it can’t be proper, no matter what the empire, for a woman of her years to work on men?

“I’m fine. You can go. Or you could bring me my breakfast. It’s late, but I’m willing to overlook that.” He tries it once, to no success, then tries again, but in Latin. The words are ugly; cobbled together fragments of knowledge taken from a tutor who’d had more useful things to teach a prince. They should still have been enough, should he have found himself in a place which spoke that language.

So. In Egypt then.

He doesn’t know any Egyptian.

With a whirling rattle, a curtain is drawn about them. It lends a false but fearsome privacy to their disconnected conversation. Arthur cannot help himself; he draws back against the cold headboard. “I’m fine. Go away.”

She smiles, and says something, and Arthur steels himself for her touch-

(He’s not dead any more. Surely he’s not dead anymore. She’s not one of _them_.)

There’s another voice. Masculine and rumbling. The lady in blue was not speaking to Arthur, apparently, but rather someone else. That curtain is drawn back just enough for Arthur’s current carer to trade places with a man. Arthur hadn't realised there were any male attendants. Yet, it's not the man's purpose here that pierces Arthur's attention, but rather a giddy wash of familiarity - a reminder of home.

For he has that smile; a certain gentle light to the eyes. A way of prattling on as he reaches out to touch Arthur.

Arthur’s seen Gwaine’s charm up close and personal many a time. He’d never realised how reassuring it would be to be on the receiving end of. And for all that this man and Arthur’s knight look nothing alike, in their attitude they could be twins.

He helps Arthur strip easily enough; changing his dressings with a perfunctorily disinterest that only slightly breaks when he first lays eyes on the scars Arthur’s won.

Well, it’s as good a collection of honour as any are likely to get, and certainly worth a look.

As the new attendant helps Arthur into fresh clothes, Arthur returns the scrutiny. There are tattoos across the Egyptian’s bared arms. Shields crossed with a spear and some other device. Maybe a magical weapon of sorts? Arthur doesn’t recognise the design upon the shield, but he does know the cause of the scar that crosses, as many similar lines cross Arthur, along the back of the former knight’s right forearm.

(He wonders why a knight would choose to hang up their blade and apprentice to a physician, but it’s just one question lost among many.)

Perhaps it’s the perceived brotherhood-in-arms which has Arthur leaning close, voice lowered in conspiracy. “How do I get food?” Because he’s _hungry_ , and this is the first fighter he’s seen since that dreadful chaos this morning, when two guards had arrived and loomed and then – at the word from a lady in white – departed.

Their clothes hadn’t been blue, like these attendants’, but Morgana-black.

Arthur’s thumb, aiming to brush across a ring, touches only skin.

The tattooed man’s eyes seem to catch the movement, but otherwise he gives no answer.

Arthur leans back. Wonders what he’s doing wrong, then decides that eating matters more than manners. “Food. You know?” He mimes lifting something to his mouth.

And understanding blossoms on the man’s face.

 _Finally!_ Arthur almost says before, just as quickly as was he understood, the man dashes his hopes by shaking his head. He’s stepping away and drawing the curtain, leaving Arthur’s mind tormented by grim imaginations of a long, slow starvation, or some strange perversion of Jarl’s fighting pits, where the sick and ill struggle for scraps of food and-

He realises that the man has been trying to talk to him. Has taken a board hung over the end of Arthur’s cot, and has drawn some numbers on to it. The numbers are thick and black and come from a quill that looks like none Arthur has ever seen before.

He tries to imagine living in a world where people even use magic to write, and simply cannot. The status of, and danger from, sorcerers here must be… immense.

The numbers on the board mark out _14:00-14:30_. They make no sense, and the board is already being flipped over as Arthur considers it. He’s handed one paper from many; this one rich with brightly drawn pictures of plants and animals. There’s a lot of pointing at the pictures and then to the red numbers above the door, and even to Arthur himself before it clicks.

_Oh._

Arthur takes back the board. Takes up the pen, because magic or not, he _needs_ to be clear, and crosses out the previous hour mark. Replaces it with _11:35_. Which is about five units of time past where they are now, and surely a reasonable duration for someone to fetch a meal from the kitchen?

Then he circles every single food option on the board. “I’m hungry enough to manage a rat, if you want to add that in, too.”

The Egyptian starts to laugh, good humour evident even as he shakes his head and crosses out Arthur’s revised time. Before Arthur can object, he pulls a small bottle of something from his pocket and rattles it. Medicine, Arthur guesses, though for what purpose, he couldn’t say. Certainly he’s not being offered any.

Instead, the man’s running one finger from his collarbone, up his throat, and quickly under his jaw past his chin. It takes about two heartbeats for Arthur to catch on.

“You’re saying I’ve had a potion that will make me vomit if I eat.” It’s such an obvious answer, something encountered numerous times before with Gaius, that Arthur can’t believe he didn’t consider it before. “I must have hit my head harder than I thought I did.”

His hands fold in front of him as he strives for calm, habit causing his fingers to try to twist a ring that isn’t there. It can’t be that long to wait, surely? Not now that he knows food is certain? “You have my gratitude.”

And maybe he is understood. For the knight-as-was nods once, before turning away.

In the end it _is_ a long wait, although eventually the time markings match up, and a plate is carried out for him. Arthur doesn’t get _everything_ from his list, but what he does get is recognisable. Salmon with cabbage. Familiarity brings a rush of relief.

When Arthur drifts off in the middle of the afternoon in perfect defiance of the bright sunlight all around, it’s feeling full and comfortable.

He thinks that maybe he’s got everything under control.


	4. Part 1, Chapter 3:  Dawn After Dusk

Arthur wakes to a large hand, strong and reassuring, on his shoulder.

For a moment, swimming up from darkness and regret into the gloaming of dusk, he thinks that he is in Camelot, preparing for patrol. Arthur blinks blurrily and half asleep. The taste of questions that never end and torments that threaten more than manifest fades into nothing stronger than forgotten dreams.

Then he recognises the person besides his bed.

It’s the tattooed man; half lost in night-time shadows.

Little enough that’s good has come of people looming in the shadows near Arthur, so it would be reasonable to tense. Instead it crosses Arthur’s mind that he should probably learn the man’s name. After all, it looks like he’ll be here for some time.

In the cold light of day, and with all of his senses about him, Arthur might have overthought the moment. In the dark, he just presses one hand, flat and steady to his chest, says “Arthur,” and then waits to see what the response will be.

“Arthur?” A smile spreads easily across the man’s features and it’s almost enough to distract Arthur from the slew of unrecognisable words that follow.

Maybe he frowns or perhaps he makes some sound of dissent, because the man stops. Appears to repeat something; the shapes and sounds of his voice running in circles. And then he falls silent.

If Arthur had expected a frustration to match his own, he doesn’t find it. Instead the man, calmly and with perfect self-control, lifts up hand to his own chest. “Pete.”

With a poise like that, it’s no wonder Pete’s retraining to be a healer.

 _Why did you wake me?_ That’s what Arthur wants to ask. Lacking the words, all he can do is to sit up and wait.

His hands want to stay busy, but when they slide together, there’s no metal band to distract him from the silence growing, awkward and full of isolation, between them.

How’s he meant to return to his kingdom, when he can’t even seek out information?

“Do you have a courtier skilled in languages?” For surely there must be one that can speak with him, in such a land of marvels of as this?

But the tattooed man has already turned away. Of course he has! He can’t understand what Arthur’s saying; what he _needs_.

The laugh that escapes him is brittle. Arthur feels like he’s been enchanted once more; but rather than briefly being cursed to bray like a donkey, this challenge threatens to last for even longer. For he hasn’t even the words to explain to Pete that he needs a scholar who can explain his words.

The thought’s there and gone again in an instant. A flash of irritated self-pity that lasts just long enough for Arthur to realise that Pete’s not left his side completely, but rather turned to open the cabinet’s drawer. He pulls out a bag transparent as water.

When Pete hands it to Arthur, his fingers curl instinctively around the slight weight. He holds the bag up, but doesn’t need the meagre light of the dusk and the glowing numbers and the tiny blue-white lights dotted around the room. He already knows what he’s holding: his rings; his pendant – they lie within.

The man’s saying something. Rattling on in a manner briefly more reminiscent of Merlin than Gwaine, but Arthur cannot focus and, even if he could, he wouldn’t have understood. Instead he is lost in relief. It’s blinding and strong, leaving him frantic not to look up for a moment until he has gathered himself.

He’d thought these tokens gone. Maybe stolen; maybe taken in payment for the treatment he’s receiving here.

For the first time, he truly begins to feel more like a guest in a hall of healing; less like a hostile prisoner in a land of the mad.

*

The sense of belonging lasts briefly enough. Pete’s stepping back, making space at the side of Arthur’s cot. Into that space, a new person steps.

She is a lady in white. And, while all the women here seem determined to wear trousers, this one is also garbed in a long flowing over-robe of perfect, uniform cleanliness.

Even without such a mark of her status, Arthur would have recognised her for the physician. When she moves, the attendants note it. When she takes up the papers from the end of Arthur’s cot, it’s with the poise of someone expecting everything to be all in order, _or else_. And when she speaks, her voice is paced with the speed of one whose time is in urgent demand.

She ends her speech on the rising note of a question and meets his gaze steadily enough to almost disguise the pinched and wary shape to her eyes.

He wonders why she looks so afraid of him. He can barely leave his bed without a hand to help him.

She repeats her speech; at least some of it. He wishes he could oblige her and answer, not just out of the manners that he’s been raised to, but simply to be able to communicate with _someone_. But before he can try to think of the best way to tackle the situation, she’s already tilted her head slightly, taking comment from Pete.

For a while their words bat back and forth; the odd abortive motions they make in Arthur’s direction each too small for him to glean any meaning from.

“It really is incredible frustrating, having you talk over me like this.”

They both look at him, then back to one another. Their words continue until, suddenly, with a brisk nod from the lady, they are done.

“Doctor Patel,” she says, one hand raised to tap her chest.

So clearly Pete had explained _that_.

For a moment Arthur imagines successfully navigating this strange land with hand signs, maybe gleaned and modified from those he used on quests with his knights.

He dismisses the idea almost instantly. The hand signals are of limited use – as Merlin demonstrated over and _over_ again (don’t think about Merlin!) – even in so focussed a situation as a hunt or an ambush. To gain sufficient detail to function in daily life one would have to build up an entire library of signals.

It will be simpler by far to just learn spoken Egyptian.

“Arthur.” He introduces himself, even if only to the barest extent. Briefly he considers using his full name, but if the Sidhe have brought him here for some strange vengeance, then it is possible that such an action would not be entirely safe.

Possibly he shouldn’t have used his given name either, but what’s done is done.

“Arthur.” A brisk nod. Then, with curtly efficient gestures that are shockingly similar to those of Arthur’s hunts, she instructs him to look at her and also at Pete.

Quickly she lifts up a slender metal cylinder. But while Pete’s cylinder had been enchanted for writing, the Lady Patel’s seems spelled for light.

Really! Egypt seems obsessed with turning night into day. Not that it wouldn’t have its use in the event that Dorocha try to take the city, but it seems a little excessive for more normal times. How does anyone sleep?

She’s shining the light into first one of Pete’s eyes and then the other, her hands covering each eye in turn as she goes. It’s a surprise to recognise the action, if not the use of the magic, from Gaius’s evaluations of head trauma.

Evaluation completed, she turns to him expectantly. “Ok?” It’s the only word she uses, and strange though it is, the accompanying gesture in his direction makes it clear that she wishes to make a similar evaluation of Arthur.

As his head’s been aching since he first regained his senses, he can see why a physician might want to undertake such an examination.

“My Lady Patel.” He dips his head, and hopes that the action counts as an affirmative in this land, much as it does in his own.

Apparently it does.

It’s a slow examination. For after the eye test, there are more checks that she wishes to undertake. Each one is carefully acted out on Pete before the physician approaches Arthur. It’s an inefficient and unnecessary explanation, but Arthur can’t deny that her concessions to his confusion are welcome.

Maybe they already know who he is, to take such respectful care with him?

For a moment he remembers just how tight-lipped Merlin could be about the ailments of those he met in the service of Gaius. Recalls too how Gaius would often empty rooms of bystanders before commencing his treatments, for the man was no charlatan to perform before an audience.

Maybe this desire to explain every stage in her examination is simply another expression of caring for the sick; one traditional in this region?

She’s stepping back, making notes on the pages with another inkless quill when the sleeve of her robe brushes back enough that Arthur sees the band of bruises around her wrist.

The sight of it chills him. For a moment he’s back in that panic-ridden morning moment. The scuffle with the creatures that felt too much like the monsters from his dreams.

He tries to remember the moment more clearly. Had the Lady Patel truly been there? Had he raised his hand to not just a lady, but a physician charged with his own care and-

He doesn’t have to lay his hand above her wrist to know; he recognises the span of his own grip.

When he extends his hand, it’s slowly, for he cannot bring himself to risk startling her. He doesn’t touch her bruises; it’s not necessary to do so for her attention to be taken to them.

“I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry. I should never have done that.”

Though the words must mean nothing to her, he tries to put all of his sincerity into his expression. She smiles at him, and it’s clear that the curve to her lips is meant to indicate acceptance, maybe even forgiveness. It’s a smile that never reaches her eyes.

After she's left, Arthur sits in the gathering night, guilt coiling around him. His thumb strokes across his fingers to be met by long-familiar, warming bands. When Pete had returned them to Arthur; he had thought they’d be enough. Something real – a token of home – to steady him while he puts back together the puzzle that is his new life.

But they’re only metal; their significance no more than that which he gives them.

They’re not enough.

*

The morning comes, and with it a woman’s voice:

"Arthur."

He thinks that it's Gwen.

It's not.

As the attendant – slowly, carefully – helps to change his bandages and dispenses medicine and water for him, he chokes down loneliness. Tells himself that his melancholy is just an effect of the morning and the sudden loss of dreams. The shock of finding himself, not in Camelot, but somewhere far away.

He’ll learn the language. Find a ship. Make his way back to the land that he loves. To Gwen and his knights. To Merlin. (They have a lot to talk through – the magic and the lies – but they have time.)

He won the war, surely he can wait a little longer to go home?

As if mirroring his thoughts of pain and battle, the attendant’s fingers seem to stray for just a moment, hesitating on what Arthur realises must be one of his older scars. He looks at her and she jerks her hand away. Busies herself with picking up discarded bits of parchment. (Who would have thought to waste parchment on covering bandages?)

Her eyes, as she evades Arthur’s glance, are just like the Lady Patel’s – wary.

Yet, strangely, he thinks that she’s afraid _for_ him not _of_ him.


	5. Interlude:  Lee

Checking his reflection in the mirror, Lee Mills, Captain of the Inquisition, straightens his tie. Through the window behind him, dawn’s light can be seen streaming through the little copse a quarter of a mile away, throwing long shadows across the fields. A quick glance at the guest room’s clock confirms that, if he’s on the road in the next twenty minutes, he’ll hit the M1 before traffic builds and should reach Guildford with time to spare.

Strange to think that, at this time yesterday, he’d already completed his day’s work. Has already rounded up and processed the so-called witches, apprehended in the midst of their little ritual. Some of them had cried as they’d been cuffed and led away to the van. One had spat threats; his curses no more effective than the hissing of a frightened kitten.

So much for power and magic.

A long day alone in the cell should have softened them up nicely. It’s always better to be given answers than to have to try to take them.

Although at least there’d been no children this time.

With one last glance to check that the fall of his suit hides the knives he wears (two strapped to his arms and one on his right lower leg), Lee picks up his satchel and heads downstairs.

Light spills out from the open kitchen door. The radio has been set to play BBC 3 at the lowest possible setting.

He’d thought he had been quiet. Clearly not quiet enough to avoid waking her. Or maybe she’d been up already? Haunted by the pains that even the Inquisition’s extensive resources could only prevent from worsening, but not reverse.

Not that she’d tell him, if she were in pain.

He steps into the kitchen.

“Morning, love.” And even though he has twenty years’ combined training and field experience in subterfuge, while she’s standing next to the slowly cooling kettle, somehow she still knows that he’s there.

“Morning, mum. You didn’t have to get up.”

“Don’t be daft, dear.” She finishes stirring milk into a mug. “You’ve got a long journey ahead of you.”

In the clear light of morning, her kitchen, usually warm with familiarity, looks shabby. The paint over the hob has discoloured from heat, while the windows look like they need a good clean, both inside and out and especially at the top where she’d had trouble reaching. He hadn’t noticed yesterday, instead spending his unexpectedly free day hacking back the brambles encroaching on her potato patch.

He’ll have to come back up next weekend. Make sure that she’s got everything she needs.

“Here you go, love.” The mug in his hands is warm. Lee is about to take a sip when his mobile gives a quick buzz.

Handing the tea back, he fishes his mobile out of his pocket and looks at the message. Maybe one of the detainees has been causing trouble?

It’s from Em: _What did you put?_

“Anything important?” his mum asks, as he types and sends: _The usual._

“Just Emma.”

“Oh, poor girl. She must be worried about her final assessment. You were a wreck leading up to that.”

‘A wreck’ is not how Lee would normally describe his current trainee. She’s good. Very, very good, with a natural ruthlessness that many people in the Inquisition struggle for years to learn. Because it’s one thing to be merciful and patient, but it’s not like they’re dealing with _people_.

“She shouldn’t worry. It’s just an essay.” Well, not _an_ essay. More like _the_ essay. As far as Lee can figure out, it’s been around as part of the assessment process for pretty much forever. No one ever gets an A-grade.

He got a D. Maybe that’s why he never gets promoted. He’s fine for sending here and there to round up the trouble, but never the one to lead the interrogations.

Or maybe that’s just because he’s from the wrong postcode.

“What’s the essay about?”

“Questioning techniques. Though they word it as a hypothetical situation.” It’s a bit of a headache to address, until you figure out what they’re really after.

“Oh? I don’t think I remember you talking about that one.”

She wouldn’t. It’s not like he could have shown his _mother_ the answer he provided. “They ask how you would go about getting answers from an immortal.” Actually, they write the situation to be even harder than that:

_There is an immortal creature, which has lived for countless years. It has no friends, family or acquaintances. It owns nothing. It cannot be killed. It believes it will see the second coming of its Christ. How do you get it to reveal its secrets?_

Really, it’s worse than the essay asking, _How do you kill Father Christmas?_ (He got a B+ in that one.)

As far as Lee can tell, the essay assessor wants you to demonstrate an understanding of interrogation techniques, mainly by setting up a scenario that rules most of them out. For without death, threatening the person becomes less convincing. With the background of having lived a long life, the use of detention and deprivation of personal freedom could seem more like a minor convenience. A lack of friends, family, personal belongings leaves nothing to threaten to destroy.

As for the ‘Christ’ comment… Fanatics are the _worst_.

The only thing left, as far as Lee could see when it was his time to answer, was ‘pain’. He drew up a forty day plan, carefully outlining a system of brutality and torment that even now makes him slightly ashamed to recall.

And for that, he got a D.

Em will probably do better without his input.

“What’s the answer?” His mum asks as he pockets his phone and she hands him back his mug, face innocent and curious.

“Oh, you know.” Lee answers vaguely, stalling for time until he can add, “You’ve just got to keep asking the questions. Wear them down.”

It’s a _good_ thought experiment, because, by presenting the trainee with an almost uncrackable being, it makes them consider what could work, and why, when they need to manipulate someone for the Inquisition.

“Don’t forget to offer them some tea, then.” His mum suggests, thoughtful. “A little kindness can go a long way. Especially when someone’s old and tired.”

Lee smiles wryly and nods as though he’s considering it. His mum doesn’t know that magic’s sometimes real; that there are things out there which are simply evil. Lee has no plans to enlighten her.

A glance at the clock tells him that he’s risking running late, so he gulps down the rest of his drink. “I’ve got to go, mum.”

As he leaves, he stops to peck her on the cheek. “I’ll see you soon.”

Make the monsters a cup of tea?

Not that he’ll need any strategy near so complicated for today’s interrogations.


	6. Part 1, Chapter 4:  The Cartographer

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For clarity, I’m going to put Arthur’s British in “speech marks”, and the modern English he hears inside < angular brackets >. This will stop when Arthur starts to understand the language, but that’s not going to be for several chapters yet – I’ll let you know when it happens!

Mid-morning the next day, Pete returns. He’s leading a dumpy woman and carrying a silver-coloured box with strange protrusions. The box goes on top of Arthur’s cabinet, a coiled string, ornamented at either end, placed at its side. The woman stands herself by Arthur’s cot.

< Sital, > Pete says by way of introducing the woman, which Arthur is going to have to assume is her name.

He inclines his head. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Sital. I’m Arthur.”

She smiles, and it’s the type of smile that Gwen would wear when he’d done something she thought was strange. Then Sital begins to speak. She speaks for a long time, and the only thing that Arthur can make out is his name and hers repeated over and over in a near endless stream of nonsense.

Considering he’d spent a noticeable amount of previous day feeling sorry for himself because he couldn’t request the presence of a travelled courtier skilled in languages, it takes Arthur an embarrassing length of time to realise that this is exactly whom he has standing in front of him. Her every repetition must be a different attempted tongue.

None of them sound familiar.

“You should probably stop right there.” Arthur says. “Perhaps if I talk to you for a little, then you will recognise my words? You see, my name is Arthur and I’m from-”

He falters, distracted, for the woman is holding a small, shining box out towards him. It looks like the one that the old man in the cot opposite likes to speak into. Except that, as Arthur speaks, the side of it which glows with arcane light is covered in rapidly moving black text. The script is mostly unfamiliar, although some characters look comparable to his own script (if considerably more consistent in shape).

The moving letters are illuminated, as some of Geoffrey’s better texts are. However, here the fashion seems to be brilliant red underlining instead of the more usual sketches of hounds and dragons and unicorns.

“Arthur,” Pete says and, having drawn Arthur’s attention, makes a circling gesture with his arm as if to ask Arthur to keep going.

So Arthur does. He talks until his mind runs out of sensible things to say, then he works through several frankly ridiculous pieces of castle gossip.

By the time that he finishes talking about the cook’s apparent preference for the master of the stables, Arthur’s throat aches. He reaches out to take the cup of water from his cabinet, leaving Sital and Pete to confer.

As he drinks, Arthur watches them. He doesn’t need to know Sital’s language to know what her face is conveying: _I have no idea what he’s saying._

Well, that makes two of them.

He tells himself not to be worried by this; that this is only his second day awake. (Or is it his third or forth or even longer? Just how long ago did he stumble from the water and into chaos? Head wounds are notoriously tricky.) He just need to give his hosts time.

He’s expecting to be left in boredom after Sital leaves. Yet before leaving, Pete reaches over to the box that he’s brought, presses something on it, and fills the air with chattering and noise. Arthur tries not to jump, but suspects that he’s not hidden his shock, for Pete pats his shoulder consolingly.

And then he, like Sital, leaves.

The box does not shut up. Indeed, boredom quickly seems preferable to this magical inanity.

In the end, Arthur’s irritating tedium is only broken when the-attendant-who-is-not-Gwen-even-if-she-says-Arthur’s-name-like-his-wife-does returns with a wheeled chair. The chair is more stable than it sounds, which is good as he is bidden to sit in it. Not-Gwen then sweeps him from the room.

It feels… wrong… to be dependent on the attendant. For surely it can’t be easy for her to manoeuvre him so? To push him out of the door and left along a corridor and-

Outside the space where he has been sleeping, there are corridors and false rooms that seem to move and more doors than Arthur can imagine. Maybe he hasn’t the strength to walk them all. Not today.

Arthur’s destination, when they reach it, is no less strange than anything else he’s seen recently. For he’s bid to lie down upon a cot even less comfortable than his previous one, by a white-haired matriarch wearing a tunic of almost Camelot-red. Above the cot a strange collection of tubes and boxes are suspended.

While she’s looming over him, the lady in red takes a moment to try to take the rings from his fingers; Arthur clenches his fist to stop them slipping free. Not-Gwen calls out something, voice sharp with alarm and – remembering the bruises on the physician’s wrist – Arthur is left regretting his motion for the old woman has stepped back hurriedly.

It’s clear that Arthur’s action has been misunderstood.

He wants to try to find a way to let the old woman know he wouldn’t hurt them, but she and not-Gwen have already turned to leave the room. Something in the constellation of chaos above him starts to click and whir and, startled, Arthur sits up.

The old woman returns, frowning.

Her hands are certain – she has Gaius’s touch – as she presses him back down before leaving the room once more.

The noise repeats, but as this is clearly meant to be expected, Arthur tries to remain still.

This time when the red-clad woman returns, it’s to manoeuvre him into another position. Again, she leaves and the clicking resumes.

The third time she returns, he resists her impertinent touches. “I have been very patient with you, but enough is enough. This will stop. Now.”

She blinks. Points at the contraption above and says, < X-ray. >

“Great. And what’s that?”

For a moment they stand there, apparently in a stalemate of miscommunication. Then she steps back; just the one step. Beckons to him. < Come. > Takes another step back. < Come. > Eventually it is clear that she wants him to follow her as she leads him into a small room adjacent to that which he’s been lay down in. Given that not-Gwen is there, sitting on a chair that spins, this is evidently where the pair of them have been retreating to.

There are glowing images on the wall and-

He’s looking at a black and white sketch of a skeleton. Arthur’s unfortunately seen enough of them over the years to do more than merely recognise human remains when he sees them. Indeed, he can spot that these appear to have belonged to an adult male and one of a stocky build. There’s the knotting of two well-healed breaks above the left wrist, which is interesting, because he’d also broken his wrist in such a location, first as a child and then later in a skirmish as a youth. The ribs show extensive signs of healed damage; presumably this man had been a fighter. He’s got rings on his fingers and-

He’s got _Arthur’s_ rings on his fingers.

“That’s me.” What sorcery had these witches used to see his bones through his flesh?

And then, because they won’t understand his words, he taps the image. “Arthur.”

Not-Gwen nods. Female-Gaius makes a gesture to the length of his torso, and then back to the images. It’s clear that she wants to look inside of him some more. He is very tempted – leg wound or not – to walk out of the room and then keep on going.

Merlin would have wanted him to trust them; to see the good in magic.

But Merlin is an accomplished liar.

In the end, Arthur does allow the attendants to resume their inspection. But not because Merlin would have wanted him to. Rather because the images are fascinating.

He makes them show him each and every one they take.

*

By the time he is returned to his proper cot, Arthur is ready for sleep or lunch; he doesn’t much mind which. Instead, Sital is back, and with her she has brought another old lady.

Arthur is beginning to think that this physician’s palace is run by old women.

< Hello, Arthur, > Sital says, leaving Arthur wondering whether ‘hello’ is a title or a greeting. He doesn’t have much time to think it though, because Sital is already gesturing to the new woman. < Melanie. >

< Hello, Arthur, > Melanie says. And the whole ridiculousness of the moment – of his confusion, and the strange place, and two word sentences that he _still can’t_ understand – is too much for him. Arthur starts to laugh.

He fears that he sounds hysterical.

Melanie pours him a cup of water, and holds it out. Arthur accepts it with a hand that’s steadier than he expected and, as he gulps some down, he tries to figure out who Melanie is. Perhaps a maidservant, as she’s serving him? Except that she seems too old for such a duty.

The puzzle helps to settle his thoughts. For there are large questions and small questions and, with things being as they currently are, perhaps it’s best for him to focus on the small. He sets the cup back down and gives Melanie his attention.

Maybe seeing that he’s calmed a little, Melanie taps the cup just enough to make the remaining fluid slosh. < Water, > she says, voice clear. So maybe she is here to teach him.

“Thank you, Melanie.”

She smiles, dimpling in a way that suggests that she must have been a great beauty, once. < You’re welcome. >

Sital says something to Melanie, speaking over Arthur like he is not there. Which, as far as his engagement with the conversation goes, unfortunately isn’t wrong. She pulls at the chair besides Arthur’s cot until it moves closer and then Melanie sits down. She’s carrying a bag on one shoulder, and settles it on her lap before making a small, waving gesture to Sital. < Bye, Sital. >

< Bye, Melanie. > Sital waves back. < Bye, Arthur. >

< Bye, Sital. > Arthur tries, and is rewarded with a smile. Apparently he got that correct; ‘Bye’ is a statement of farewell. Sital leaves.

For a moment, with the departure of Sital, they sit in near silence; Melanie apparently almost as uncertain as Arthur himself. Pete’s noisy box carries on chattering in the background. Melanie gives it a dark look, then takes up the thin black string that Pete left and stabs the annoying box quite viciously with the bronze-coated end.

The world goes blessedly silent, only a dull hiss remaining.

Taking the other end of the string, Melanie holds it first to her ear, and then towards his. Arthur takes it, dubiously. The noise from the box is coming out of the end ornamentation. The closer he brings it to his ear, the louder it is.

He puts the black string back on the cabinet top, and can only hear the dimmest of chatters. Melanie nods approvingly, leans across the top of the box, and presses something on the wall that clicks sharply. Even that tiny remaining hiss ceases. Watching Arthur, she presses the white feature on the wall again. The hiss resumes.

Arthur reaches over and copies her movement. There’s a moment’s resistance, then a click. Then silence.

“You have my thanks once more, Lady Melanie. Being subjected to inane chatter might sometimes be inevitable, but that was becoming excessive.”

< Radio. > She says, patting the box.

This time when she sits back, their silence doesn’t seem quite so bad.

She starts to rummage through her bag, emptying objects onto the cabinet top as she goes. Some are familiar – little bound stacks of parchment; what looks like a coin purse; a child’s toy shaped like a horse, but crafted in a strange and colourful resin – though there are many more that he cannot hope to guess the purpose of.

At last she pulls out a small box, just like the one the old man has, or that Sital has, save that Melanie’s is lacquered with an image of a cat, and its glowing face is cracked. He hadn’t realised that the magic was cast onto something as fragile as glass, though he’s heard tell of scriers working with mirrors.

After quickly returning her items to the bag, Melanie taps one finger on her device. < Phone. > She presses a button and does… something… with her fingers. Maybe she’s casting an incantation? One without words.

Her eyes don’t glow. Arthur tells himself this means nothing; no ones eyes seem to glow now.

When Melanie shows him her ‘phone’ it’s displaying not text, but strangely precise lines that can only mark one thing.

< Map. > she tells him calmly, before making the map simultaneously shrink while also expanding its bounds. The action is impossibly fast, leaving Arthur feeling like he is falling up, into the sky.

She’s saying more words, but they make no sense. All Arthur can focus upon is the existence of lines upon lines upon lines. A city with no ending, until, just by the side of the broken glass, there’s finally a blue and snaking line. A river maybe?

But forget where he _is_ , if Melanie has a map, then maybe she can tell him, “Where’ Camelot?” He gestures to her phone. “Camelot.”

“Camelot?” She frowns. And then, like a miracle, buried in the words that she replies with are names he knows: Merlin, Arthur, Guinevere.

It’s too good to be true, leaving Arthur convinced that he’s still trapped in Avalon; an unwilling guest of the Sidhe.

Unaware of Arthur’s internal struggle, Melanie has taken her phone back and started to tap at it. In contrast, Arthur starts to ache for Excalibur again. Nothing about this situation feels right. He’s hurt and sick in some indescribable place.

He needs to leave. But can he truly bare to use force on old women to make good his escape? Could the Sidhe have deliberately chosen these forms for their latest torment, intending to hinder his attempts at reprisal?

Actually, that would be a _very good reason_ for there to be so many old women about.

Melanie cuts through his churning thoughts by pushing her phone over to him. “Camelot.”

There are a series of pictures; tiny and perfect. Castles, knights on horseback; people at… a round table.

The man with the crown has a ridiculous beard, and the woman with a crown is blond. She’s also wearing a ludicrous triangular hat with some sort of banner hanging from its peak, though even that is not so hideous as the garb of one of the old courtiers; painted wearing a bright blue gown with gold stars all over it, plus a matching hat.

If he ever gets back to Camelot, Arthur is _definitely_ making Merlin wear a hat like that. Forget that red-feathered thing; this towering monstrosity should induce the right amount of ridicule.

(Is he _really_ willing enough to forgive Merlin that a simple hat prank will make things right?)

“Well,” Arthur tries to be diplomatic, even if Melanie can’t understand him, “I suppose that our ideas of Egypt must be similarly fanciful.”

Melanie smiles and shakes her head slightly, confused.

“Where is Camelot from here? How do I get there? How do I get home?”

Her confusion doesn’t lift.

Maybe his kingdom is simply too small to be located by the average Egyptian? Certainly his language is unknown enough. Frantically Arthur tries to think of the largest landmark he knows of; the biggest settlements reachable from his kingdom without crossing seas. “Camulodunum?” It had housed the main Roman Legionary base in times gone by. Surely word of it has spread outside that fallen empire?

Melanie just looks blank.

“Deva Victrix? Aquae Sulis? Londinium?”

< London? >

Oh, thanks the gods! It’s merely some strange mispronunciation of place names that has left her confused. Arthur had been beginning to think that something _truly_ strange had taken place.

(Or maybe that the Sidhe hadn’t lied, when saying he’d slept for long years.)

“London.” He mirrors her pronunciation and taps the phone. “Map.”

She leans closer obligingly, summoning her map. She shows him her London.

*

“Arthur?” There’s a gentle hand on his. “Arthur?” It’s Melanie. She sounds worried.

He looks at her, and tries to smile. It can’t be polite to worry an elderly lady. But his smile will not come, and his hand under hers is too close to trembling to be convincing.

So he sends her away.

< Bye, Melanie. >

At least, he tries to. For a moment she hesitates. Says words that make no sense and which he has lost any appetite for translating. < Bye, Melanie. Bye. >

Eventually she leaves.

Arthur tugs his knees up to his chest. Feels pain in his thigh, and suspects that he’s torn a stitch or two. Can’t bring himself to care.

He presses his face down upon his knees, and hopes that no one sees his eyes shimmer before he does so.

He is not in Egypt.

But then, he already knew that. The food; the angle of the sunlight; the familiar numbers: it all speaks of home or, at any rate, nowhere so distantly southern. It’s frustrating to realise that he’s been lying to himself. Worse yet, to realise how bad he is at it.

He tells himself that he’s angry, because that’s better than acknowledging how he really feels.

When lunch comes, he eats not because he’s hungry, but because he cannot afford to be weak.

*

That night, just as Arthur’s on the edge of sleep, Pete returns. He picks up the radio, which is good, for Arthur can see no purpose in shattering his much-needed rest with voices that speak a language he cannot comprehend. But Pete replaces the radio with something else. It looks a bit like the coming-and-going screens that Arthur’s skeleton had been displayed upon earlier.

Pete pats the flattish box and gives Arthur a cheerful grin. < TV, > he says, cryptically.

Arthur can’t find the optimism to smile back.


	7. Part 1, Chapter 5:  Of Romans and Their Echoes

On the day that Arthur finally finds out that everyone is dead, Nurse Becky calls him a baby.

She does that, because she doesn’t want to help him dress. As an attendant, she’s clearly as insubordinate as Merlin.

She’s being rather insulting, but as Arthur's vocabulary is currently limited to the few nouns that Melanie has both been able to explain to him (he's still not certain what wi-fi, internet or electricity are, for example) and teach him to pronounce, it's probably the best word available to her.

Or maybe Nurse Becky really does think he's helpless as a baby.

It’s frustrating. He's been trying to feel _less_ useless. Has been working on his strength, by walking around the hospital, and also on his learning, studying carefully the maps and charts that Melanie seems kind enough to bring for him. (Her maps are amazing; colourful, detailed, exact. Why couldn’t he have had access to charts like these when planning his campaigns?)

Now, apparently, he must add to his days, by dressing and bathing himself.

It’s forming a rhythm of sorts. In the morning he is woken by the gentle voices of women calling his name (but never, to his relief, touching him). Then there are the charts and breakfast. After this, he will turn on Pete’s TV, mostly to watch this strange culture which he has been immersed in. It’s a world where personal relationships involve a lot of fluidity and also more tears than seems comfortable; where everyone moves around in horse-less carriages of varying levels of off-road impracticality; and where swords and armour seem to have been replaced by magical noise sticks. (When the TV shows Arthur these programmes, one of the attendants - < Nurses > \- typically comes over and turns it off; apparently violence in a physician’s realm is as inappropriate as here as in Camelot.)

The TV is certainly an… interesting introduction to this world around him. Arthur tries very hard not to think about how this world can exist where he knows there should be only forests and moors.

Have to Sidhe taken him through some doorway and into one of the fabled worlds-through-the-reflection, where everything is strange?

How will he win his way back?

(Has the food that he’s eaten here bound him to this realm, as the stories say, shattering any chance for his departure?)

He may need to find a sorcerer to consult with; though in a realm as enchanted as this, that should be no great challenge.

(Unless he’s not in a mirror world. But for such changes to be wrought on the landscape as he knows it; for languages to blur and for culture to alter- No. That’s insane. Merlin would _never_ do that to him.)

So Arthur has a quest ahead of him. To get well, to find a sorcerer, and thence to find a split between one world and the next.

His TV time is nearly finished now. He’ll leave it on while lunch is brought. After lunch, there will be the favourite part of his day: Melanie. Unless, of course, the physicians want to take another look at him. Yesterday they had interrupted his time with Melanie to take him to another seeing room. This one was for < em-ar-eye> and had shown images of his _organs_. Most particularly, of his brain. That had almost been worth being strapped, unmovable, to a board for.

Melanie, in so far as Arthur can tell, is a sort of communal lady-in-waiting. The type of lady that dowagers retain. Someone to read to them and make witty conversation, rather than to engage in any noteworthy level of physical labour. Here, she is titled a < volunteer >.

At the moment, she is reading to Gerald, an old man in the opposite corner who never seems to receive visitors. After Gerald, she used to sit with Paul, helping him to operate a phone, so that the old man could smile and wave and generally seem inordinately happy. Then she would sit with Arthur. Yesterday she helped Arthur learn that a hound is a < dog >, oxen are < cattle >, and that the glowing numbers over the door are a < clock >.

It’s slow, but he’s getting _somewhere_. It’s been made easier by the small notebook and instrument of inscription, or < pencil >, that Melanie has left with him, allowing him to make notes on meaning and < English > pronunciation in his own tongue.

And his learning _is_ getting faster. Partly because Paul left yesterday, cured, and Melanie seems to have transferred all of her extra time over to Arthur. Arthur tries not to feel smug, but is content that he can best Gerald should things come to a dual.

It’s Nurse Sofia who brings Arthur his lunch – beef and indeterminate root vegetables, as well as perfectly transparent pressed apple juice. She calls his name as she comes over. (All the nurses call Arthur’s name; they don’t do this for the other patients. Arthur’s not certain why this is.) When he signals with a smile that he knows that she’s there, she places the plate and cup on a wheeled table, then she brings the lot over to his cot.

< How are you doing today, Arthur? >

< Good, thank you, Nurse Sofia. >

He’ll remember saying that – _meaning_ that – later.

For now he’s only half watching the TV.

It’s enough to destroy his peace of mind.

On the TV there are two men. They are dressed up in the shiny chest plates and red-plumed helmets of Roman centurions. As is evident from the days Arthur’s spent since waking (or should that be resurrecting?) it’s not a current fashion here and now, any more than it is in his own Camelot. However, the two men are walking about in a freshly mown field pointing at ruined walls and occasionally the TV shows < photographs > of other artefacts – fragments of a jug; an old coin; a broken comb – so it’s obvious that they are current people, wondering about and making some sort of demonstration about the historical Roman occupation.

It’s all vaguely interesting, and Arthur wonders what the men would make of the remains under Camelot.

That's when they display the timeline.

Arthur knows that it’s a timeline, because they run the year in Roman numerals as well as Arabic: the years of the various legion arrivals; the sack of Londinium; imperial deaths. There would be nothing new in those dates, save that then the men run the timeline out, past knights in on horses, past an image of a king holding a sword high (William the… Arthur loses his title), past a cryptic image of a rat fleeing a burning building, and to an image of a smiling family (two badly drawn ‘adults’ and a small blob between them) besides a < car >.

There are far too many M’s in that date.

Arthur swings his legs over the edge of his cot. Stands. Across the ward, Melanie breaks off her conversation with Gerald, but Arthur can’t spare the time to reason with her now. He heads decisively for the room’s door, and does not let the lingering pain in his leg slow him down.

It’s not that he’s going anywhere. (There’s nowhere to go.) It’s just that he can’t see _that date_ in his head and stay still.

Maybe if he keeps moving, he can drive it from his thoughts.

Instead he’s running the numbers. The centuries between his birth and the Roman retreat. The date array on the TV. It’s a basic subtraction; Arthur tells his mind not to carry it out.

There are stairs ahead, and Arthur slams his feet down, viciously, on every one. He’s especially violent with his injured side.

(It’s not that he wants to trip and fall. Or that he thinks that being in pain will _help_. And yet…)

Somehow he runs out of stairs and finds himself in a large, open area flooded with people rushing to and fro. There’s a large moving door that keeps opening, untouched, and beyond it… It’s not the sky – all that Arthur can see is more wall – but there’s rain falling between the door and the wall, so he must be looking at the outside.

No one looks twice at him.

Why would they? He’s a creature out of their antiquity even if they don’t know it.

Gods! How can they look so much the same as people of his time do? To think! He’d been fixated on the changes in mere garb!

Arthur tries to grasp just how much people could change and advance in such a timeframe. (Fifteen centuries, or there about. His mind won’t leave well enough alone.) Thinks of the innovations that swept his lands with every visitor and new trade partner. With every war and hardship. Tries to _imagine_ how much everything else must have changed.

What must be waiting outside of those doors.

He stumbles back, and is somewhat surprised to realise that he’s fallen into the embrace of a plant.

It’s an ivy; utterly mundane. It looks dry and neglected. Its soil parched. The leaves are evergreen, but only because the plant has no choice in the matter, for it is made that way. Tendrils reach up, several stories into the atrium; an almost pagan touch in this utterly unfathomable future.

Arthur curls his fingers into the rim of the ivy’s large pot, and he tries to remember how to breathe.

_Fifteen hundred years._

There’s no way back. Not from that.

_Maybe a very powerful sorcerer-_

He’s fifteen centuries into the future. All his thoughts of magic and witchcraft… It’s just science; people being people with time to innovate. There is no magic here.

It's everything his father ever battled for.

It's not bad. Not as possible futures could have gone. The healing – _that_ seems miraculous, and all obtained at no moral cost. For no one’s eyes have ever flashed gold, for all that the land is soaked in ‘enchantment’.

There is no magic, and there is no way for Arthur to go back.

Which means everyone - everyone who matters - is dead.

Tears sting Arthur’s eyes, and no one stops or even glances his way. There are more people here than ever there were in Camelot, yet not a one has any though for him. Angrily, Arthur dashes the tears form his face. Smears his fingers across the ivy leaves, hoping to dry the evidence from his skin.

He just leaves trails in the dust that has settled on the ivy.

Everyone’s dead. They’re dust. There’s no way back. Nothing familiar, only buried artefacts like those seen on the TV, and caught up in photographs.

 _What had they_ done _to him?_

For a moment Arthur thinks that the ivy seems to tremble towards him, but it's just the water shimmering in his eyes; the shaking taking over his limbs.

There is no magic in this land, and it holds no loved ones for him.

Merlin should have left him to die.


	8. Part 1, Chapter 6:  The Officials

Time passes. It does so sluggishly, as though the passage of the sun itself is tied to Arthur's thoughts. Yet even as it passes, it repeats.

Arthur finds that fitting.

For, in truth, his mind is caught up in snarls and circles that manage never to travel anywhere. He has no idea what he's meant to be doing; how he's meant to be making his way in this world. It's worse even than the time that his father removed him from succession. Possibly because he’s meant to be _dead_ , not living, and so has cut his fate free; aimless. But purposeful existence or not, he can't exist on charity _forever_.

So he studies maps; he studies English. Melanie leaves him books, and the nurses take the time to chat to him. One of the new patients, Alfie, has a daughter-in-law who, after her father-in-law has read them, gives Arthur shiny documents filled with photographs of birds and strip fields - < allotments > \- and what appears to be cooks’ notes. The text is neat and the sections are often short. Arthur studies the words; sometimes successfully stumbling through a line or two.

Sometimes he just looks at the pictures.

There are old men, still hale, who hold up immense edible roots, while soil clings to their hands. Other pages show women, dressed in britches, yes, but not of the finely woven fabrics that appear to characterise this era; rather these women will be clad in wool and thick gloves as they point out weeds or collect salad leaves. By the cooks’ notes, there is an image of three children of variable ages. They stand near a thorny thicket, mouths stained with the berries that their parent must have used when making their food.

Arthur's living in the future, but these people still love their land.

And there _is_ land, somewhere, out beyond the city.

It's a blessed relief.

"Arthur?" He looks up, and is somewhat startled to see Doctor Patel. She rarely needs to come over to see him, especially now, with his pains mostly healed. She’s accompanied by Pete, and an unknown woman. < This is Officer MacAdam. >

Pete is drawing the curtains around them; apparently he thinks that they need privacy.

'Officer' is spoken like a title. The woman with Doctor Patel is clad in the dark clothes and heavy belt-for-carrying-things that the TV has shown Arthur is this kingdom’s current guards’ uniform. But there the similarity to TV ends. She's _tiny_.

Only the fact that her uniform fits perfectly enables her to look any less like a child playing in her father's attire.

Arthur very carefully fights to keep any trace of these thoughts from his face. Morgause had been feminine and lethal; likely MacAdam is much the same.

Why has the doctor brought a guard before him?

It’s an irrelevant question; there’s only one line of conversation he has words enough to pursue: < Hello, Officer. >

Officer MacAdam replies, but then her words veer into meaninglessness. Thankfully she doesn’t talk for long before she stops, head cocked in question and a gentle smile on her lips.

She looks far too tender to be a guard. Arthur wonders what’s going on.

< Arthur? > She makes his name a question, but what she’s asking, he doesn’t know.

Maybe Doctor Patel recognises a situation with no progress, or maybe she picks up on Arthur’s frustrated uncertainty. < He has head trauma. > It’s a phrase that Arthur has heard often enough that it makes sense to him. There are more words, but he also makes out < no English >, which surely she could have told the Officer before they came over?

< Head trauma? > And then there’s a slew of words that make no sense to him, save that they’re spoken in a clearly sceptical tone of voice. Which is fair enough, because there’s actually nothing _wrong_ with Arthur’s head; he just happens to be from a different millennium.

< Yes, head trauma. > And then, quite clearly, he hears Doctor Patel add, < Also suspected abuse. >

Arthur knows what < also > means – they use it a lot when ordering meals – the rest of the diagnosis is unclear. Maybe a reference to his damaged leg? Though why either the doctor or the guard would expect that to affect his language skills is beyond him.

But the officer accept this comment seriously, face both solemn and attentive like Gwen at her most merciful. She says more words, nominally directed at Arthur, though none of them make any sense. It’s Pete who tries to translate; directing Arthur’s attention towards his < notebook > in such a manner as to make it clear that he would like the officer to be permitted to read it.

Arthur inclines his neck; there’s nothing secret in his attempts to understand the teachings of Melanie.

The guard takes Arthur’s notes from Pete, flicking through them. Her eyebrows rise before she very carefully smooths out her face.

And, in that moment, she doesn’t remind him of Gwen at all.

Instead Arthur finds himself looking into a proverbial mirror; can recognises from the outside her expression of quickly stifled but extreme disquiet. She thinks that something is very wrong indeed.

Yet she smiles, all kindness and calm, as she hands the notebook back to Pete.

Then she leans closer; asks Arthur a question he can only follow because it’s both short, and includes two words Melanie has taught him just the day before: < where > and < home >.

_I’m from a castle lost to time. For centuries, I’ve been guest of the Sidhe; most of which I have absolutely no recollection of and honestly suspect I was dead for. I have absolutely no idea why I’m here in this time, forget why I’m here in this place._

It’s not an explanation he’d have liked to receive as a king, so it’s something of a mercy that he’s incapable of explaining it now. Instead he copies one of Merlin’s favourite tricks and shrugs gormlessly.

There’s a question about his name: < Arthur >

It’s repeated, but Arthur doesn’t know what to add to that. 'Arthur Pendragon' is a badly-coloured image on a phone, not a man made of flesh. < Arthur Penn > he settles on.

The next question utterly loses him, until Pete gets involved. Even then it’s a slow discussion. There’s a calendar of the year to understand, and a long explanation using the words < mother > and < baby > repeatedly until Arthur realises they want the date of his birth.

Ignoring the fact that the year will be problematic, the date is little better. For giving his birthday is all well and good, save that their calendar doesn’t align to his understanding of yearly division. Arthur ties to sketch out the wheel of the year, but to no avail. Finally the officer seems to accept that it’s a question going nowhere.

None the less, it seems important to her. Maybe she hopes to use astrology to track his fate? As far as Arthur’s been able to determine, it’s a ‘science’ which is utter gibberish, but maybe they’ve advanced it now? He resolves to try to work out the date over the next few days; surely someone will know how mid-summer and mid-winter align to Pete’s odd breakdown of days into thirties, thirty-ones and twenty-somethings?

He wonders what the astrologist will find.

That’s when the audience turns strange. For she wants to cover his fingers in dye and press them to paper. Pete and Doctor Patel do not appear to see anything strange in this, and, truly, Arthur can see no harm in it beyond dirty fingers. And the soap of this future time is better than that of Camelot, no matter how traitorous that thought leaves him feeling.

But then she wants some of his hair. No matter how evident the lack of magic has become, willingly giving up hair… that leaves him uneasy.

He flat out refuses the blood.

Is surprised that he’s _allowed_ to refuse, but apparently he is.

Then the officer tries to talk about old battle wounds, though it’s Pete who offers Arthur insight into most of her questions. Who clarifies that Arthur should roll back the sleeves of his robe, the better to show off the scars that cross his arms. Maybe she’s just seeking to put him at ease after the ink and hair and blood issue, but the guard seems interested in understanding what weapon _exactly_ has inflicted each mark on his skin.

Arthur’s as willing to trade battle tales as the next knight (okay, maybe not so willing as Gwaine), but there’s something about the focused nature of her attention which agitates him.

Pete and Doctor Patel seem to pick up on this at the same time; the conversation is terminated more quickly than ever any such awkward audience in Camelot could be.

Apparently Arthur could have done with both in his council.

As Pete leaves, he very slowly and carefully gives Arthur’s shoulder a squeeze. At lunch, all of Arthur’s preferred foods appear.

*

In truth, Arthur puts the entire meeting out of his mind. While it might have been a peculiar session, compared to the many other bizarre meetings and machines and ideas he’s being introduced to every day, there’s nothing so special about it.

Indeed, the very next morning, Gerald beckons him over. It’s after an entirely unexpected and singular visit by a young, harassed-seeming man wearing strange combination of stripped grey trousers and jacket, a white shirt, and a bright red fabric noose. Owing to the shared resemblance, Arthur takes him to be Gerald’s son. Or maybe a nephew or grandson.

When Arthur crosses the room to him, Gerald’s holding his usual < tablet > in his hand, but also a second one. The first has a thin crack across the bottom of the glass; a defect far less prominent than the damage on Melanie’s phone. Gerald’s second tablet is clearly new; a replacement.

Arthur has a heartbeat to hope Gerald isn’t expecting guidance on using the tablet, before he realises that he’s got the situation entirely backwards.

For Gerald spends the next hour showing Arthur how to < charge > the < device >, and how to < access > the < internet > to look at < websites >. In particular, he seems determined to show Arthur that there are libraries beyond count of information, all stored in some unknowable way. (Magic really does seem like the only answer, except that Arthur’s also reasonably certain that nothing about the tablet is magical.)

Arthur can’t read any of the websites that Gerald starts him on; but one seems to consist mainly of moving images, similar to those on TV, but much shorter. They repeat too.

One page of images explain the < toilets > attached to the ward; showing sketches of pipes with blue-coloured water moving in (depicted by convenient little arrows) followed by the departure of red-coloured ‘waste water’ along < sewer > routes.

That’s just _one_ explanation. That website alone holds hundreds more.

Gerald seems amused by his fascination with sanitation, but also a little pleased with himself. If Arthur were still king, rather than subject to this odd banished-to-the-future-from-his-kingdom situation he’s found himself in, such currying of favour would make sense. But Gerald is no courtier in Arthur’s hall; such manipulation should be meaningless. Maybe he likes helping people? Although, if he’s feeling anywhere near so useless as Arthur, cooped up and waiting for who-knows-what, then maybe he’s just enjoying having someone hang on his words.

Either way, he’s being generous.

He doesn’t let Arthur return the tablet that evening.

His probably-son returns two days later and they leave together. Gerald won’t let Arthur return the old tablet then, either. Apparently it’s a gift.

*

When Pete wakes him unexpectedly, it’s still dark outside. There’s an instant when Arthur wonders if he should thank the man for… not letting it be one of the others. But can’t find the words. Certainly not when the bigger question is, _Why are you waking me now?_

Then he remembers. Not the ‘why’ of being woken, but everything else.

 _I should be dead._ It’s ever close to his thoughts these days. _Just like everyone I know._

Grief, sharp and intimate as only homesickness can be, cuts him to the quick.

Arthur forces himself to put it to one side.

< Pete. Are you ok? >

< Sorry. > It’s never a word that one wants to hear in the dark; not when everything seems so… tentatively alright. Frantically Arthur searches Pete’s subsequent words for meaning, but cannot seem to make them follow logic.

< Arthur? > Pete’s hand is warm on his shoulder. < Calm down. >

Arthur tries to.

< Five thirty in the morning. > Pete indicates the clock. < Sorry. >

So _that’s_ what he’s apologising for. The concern coiling Arthur up inside disappears instantly leaving him feeling washed out and flat. < Why? >

< Doctor Patel. >

Actually, when Arthur dresses and follows Pete to what is clearly Doctor Patel’s personal study, it is not the doctor alone who greets him, but rather a number of other people, too. Sital and Officer MacAdam he recognises. Two older men – one dressed in fine black cottons similar to Gerald’s relative and the other in rumpled colourful knitwear – he does not.

If Arthur were summoned in the dark of night to his Council Chamber and walked in on a meeting like _this_ … He would not like it. At all. He’s not convinced that fifteen hundred years ‘progress’ render that dislike unreasonable.

This has all the hallmarks of an ambush.

< Arthur. > Doctor Patel stands. < This is Mister Peterson. > The cotton-clad man nods, briefly. Upon closer inspection, he seems worn and tired. < And Mister Sal. >

Mister Sal, whoever he may be, is smiling the smile of someone truly intent on making a sale. He reaches out a hand to Arthur, who instinctively clasps his forearm. Sal briefly looks startled, but doesn’t try to correct whatever mistake Arthur has make. It’s just as well; Arthur’s starting to get tired of redoing everything a hundred times over.

< Hello, Arthur. I’m Sal. You’ll- > Arthur loses the rest of his words, and wonders why Mister (or Sal) is acting so earnestly. The longer he’s talking, the less he feels like a trader, and the more he’s like the father of some young squire, looking to see if his king has a spot among his household.

At some point Arthur must fail to react when he’s meant to. There’s an awkward pause, and then Sital suggests. < Let’s sit. >

Arthur sits. It doesn’t escape his notice that Pete doesn’t. Rather, he remains hovering by Arthur’s side, much as Merlin used to.

Arthur gives him a long, thoughtful look. Looks at the rest of the room. A physician, a travelled linguist, an (presumably) high-ranking guard, two men from beyond this < hospital > domain of the women.

Pete is an attendant – nurse, whatever word they use here. The only possible reason that Arthur can see for his continued presence, is that Doctor Patel is aware of Arthur’s fondness for Pete, and has had Pete added to the retinue to put him at ease.

That, and possibly to ‘translate’.

It’s clearly a serious meeting.

Most likely one that covers his removal from the hall. He’s no longer hurt and it has not escaped his notice that everyone else leaves when they are recovered. Perhaps the guard and the misters are here in case he objects to his removal?

< Thank you, Doctor Patel. > He wants to add that she has been most kind in her treatment towards him, but Melanie has never taught him those words.

Now it looks like she never will.

Doctor Patel seems slightly flustered by this. Maybe she feels badly, to let him go with no onward plans. Gaius would have worried, too.

She starts to speak. And though Arthur can tell that she’s trying to cut her sentences down, he still finds little of meaning in them. Absolutely nothing of what she is saying seems to correlate to any of the words and terms and meanings that he’s learned to become familiar with over the last eleven days.

It doesn’t bode well for his future.

He forces himself to smile when she finishes, and prepares to rise and leave. He _will_ face this with what dignity he can.

Pete’s hand on his shoulder stops him. The attendant asks something over the top of Arthur’s head, both literally and metaphorically, of which Arthur can only clearly make out the word ‘map’. Then he leans across, pulls over a piece of paper, and makes a _very_ rough sketch of the < city >. Arthur only knows it for what it is, because of overhearing that word.

Slowly his eyes take in a wavy line which is clearly meant to be the river (it’s utterly the wrong shape) and an arrow marked with ‘N’ (which is closer to north-north-east). Whatever else he may have been in his past, if Pete were a knight under Arthur, he’d be spending a lot more time practicing his reconnaissance reporting.

Pete adds a box, and places the cross-symbol of the hospital in the centre. Maybe he’s drawing the fastest route for Arthur to take on his banishment?

And then he adds another box, at some considerable distance. Within that, he writes, _Sal’s_.

The arrow going from one to the other is not needed. Arthur’s already made the connection. Mister Sal is not looking at him as he does because he wants Arthur’s favour as a liege, but quite the opposite.

It would be embarrassing being reduced like this – to some sort of ward of an unknown liege – if only Arthur didn’t feel so terribly relieved that someone currently more capable than he, has put into place a plan for his life.

It seems like everyone is trying to talk to him. Everyone apart from Pete, who is waiting to gauge Arthur’s reaction.

And Sal, Arthur realises distractedly. Sal is also waiting.

Arthur makes himself reach out. Taps the second box on the map. < Is my… bed… here? >

< Yes. > Pete replies calmly.

Sal nods.

Arthur forces his neck to bend in acknowledgement. So he’s to be taken in as charity for some time longer yet? But it’s a kindness, and one he must be grateful to receive.

After that, there is a lot more talking. Arthur mostly lets it wash over him. It’s clear that agendas are in motion beyond his understanding. But apparently he has somewhere to go now.

He wonders if they’ll feed him well, and what work he’ll be expected to undertake. Tries to tell himself that Pete would find some way to hint if it were a terrible destination, and that Doctor Patel has never acted cruelly towards him despite their unfortunate introduction.

Arthur engages with the noise only twice more.

The first time is when Mister Peterson, branding more papers than Arthur has seen in a long while, suddenly turns to give him something. It's a small piece of strangely strong parchment, or < plastic >, with words and a photograph of Arthur's face. His name, at least as he’s given it in this place, is towards the top: _Arthur Penn_.

At the very top, it reads _EMERGENCY DOCUMENTATION_.

Arthur’s not entirely certain what to make of that. But it’s clear that it’s extended as a courtesy. < Thank you. >

The second time is right at the end of the audience. He leans forward to tap the map. < When? >

< Tuesday. > Doctor Patel says firmly. As today is Monday, then by Arthur’s understanding, he has one more night here. It doesn’t feel like enough. < Eleven in the morning. > Just before lunch; right when he’s hungriest.

Apparently he's moving into the future, whether he’s ready or not.


	9. Interlude:  Elfrida

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Confession time. I’m not actually managing to fit my interlude chapters _exactly_ where they should go, if I was entirely consistent in my timeline. They’re as close as they can be, without breaking up the main 'Parts' too often; this Interlude should fall between Part 1's Chapters 4 and 5.

Three days; what feels like a million unanswered messages sent to Mari’s mobile; and a futile drive up to Yorkshire later, and Elfrida has finally been able to file her police report.

Apparently it’s harder than she’d ever imagined to convince the authorities that an absent adult is the same thing as a ‘missing’ adult.

The process leaves her hands shaking with stress and, as she’s always been taught never to drive impaired, Elfrida crosses the road on foot to a small greasy-spoon. There she drinks decaf until she can run multiplications without error using logarithms. All told, she’s out of the house for five hours or just over.

She returns from the station, and finds their home has been ransacked.

For a moment, standing dismayed on the threshold, she actually wonders at her ill fortune; seriously considering that, in her haste to reach the station, she mustn't have locked the front door behind her.

Such bad timing! Maybe if she'd not stopped to steady her nerves on the way back? Or if only she'd turned back to check the stove was off before leaving, and so noticed the door ajar?

Could she have stopped this?

Then she walks inside.

Oh! She probably shouldn't have done that. Not alone. But who's she going to call to follow her in? Her aging father? Edward, who's working up in Aberdeen? Gary from work?

She walks inside, and moves straight to the cloakroom with its dusty fabric – now scattered asunder – and the toolbox stored there.

The contents of the toolbox are, likewise, scattered. But that just makes it faster to pick up the old two pound lump hammer, previously only used when Mari had briefly taken up stone carving.

Somewhere, some-when, Elfrida remembers reading that taking a weapon to a fight just makes it that much more likely it will be taken off you; used against you.

It should frighten her. But her hands, earlier so treacherous, feel perfectly steady on the smooth wood of the handle. All that she can think, as she imagines such as tussle, is that she'd like to see anyone _try_.

As silently as possible, she hurries from room to room; a poor imitation of a Blockbuster spy as she checks behind doors and throws open cupboards. All just to make certain that she’s perfectly alone. And only then, in the study at the top of the house, does she pause for long enough for it to start to sink in.

Someone has entered, unpermitted, and made an utter mess.

They haven't taken anything, as far as Elfrida can see. Yet with the simple truth of their break in, they've shattering her sense of sanctuary. And, in doing _that_ , they've taken _everything_.

On top of Mari’s absence, it’s simply too much!

Elfrida wants to be able to sink down to the floor; to put her head against her knees and to cry until reality changes, making everything over anew.

Instead she starts to potter about the room, picking up dropped items and returning them to the shelves. Then she realises that she should probably leave things exactly as they are; that she needs to be speaking to the police, _again_ , when really once that day had been quite enough already!

Mari's thesis, _The ‘Ley’ of the Land: A Comparison of Maps and Magic Through the Lens of British Legend_ , is on the floor, spine bent and pages crumpled.

Elfrida kneels to pick it up. As she sooths the book straight she sees what it's been covering: an old four-leaf clover, previously pressed and dried within the book's pages. Now two leaves have torn free under the book's weight.

She remembers Analise laughing and holding out that clover to Mari. It would have been nearly five years ago. It had been dusk and yet, despite the hour, warm. Everyone had been drinking a little bit more than they should have in honour of Mari's Master’s defence.

_It's a little late to need that luck now_ , Analise had said as she offered it up. And Mari...?

Mari'd taken it, and popped it into her thesis and said something that time has blurred.

Time might have stolen the words, but their sentiment echoes none-the-less, wrought of Elfrida's certain knowledge of her wife's way of thinking: _One can never have enough luck_ , maybe? Or perhaps, _This could be the mark of the luck I have already spent_?

Something profound, but optimistic.

And then – this is the bit that's never dimmed in Elfrida's recall – she'd turned to Elfrida and smiled. Had held out her hand and said, "Not that I hope I need luck as I ask you to marry me."

The clover is torn beyond repair, but Elfrida slots its constituent parts back between the scholarly pages. If Mari had been here, she'd have wept as she did so, but tears – emotion – they've never been much a part of Elfrida's life. Not without Mari.

Rather, as Elfrida replaces the book on their shelves, what _she_ feels is empty.


	10. Interlude: Merlin

Merlin dreams.

Or maybe he doesn’t. It’s getting hard to separate sleep from thoughtfulness; thoughtfulness from daze.

He dreams that he dreams of fire. (He dreams of chill.) Once he’d have thought his dreams pertained to prophesy, or were nudges from the powers-that-be as they shifted through the detritus of the existence he’s endured.

Cut off as he is, it’s as likely that he’s just cold. And, because he’s cold and yet dreaming of fire, he finds himself once more racing towards the Blessed Isle; standing between his king and the Dorocha that rush them; saving Arthur, before Arthur can die saving Merlin. Ice seems to catch at his very bones, and from there it grows until Merlin feels locked away more surely than ever he could be in the clutches of cold iron.

Not that iron’s always cold; sometimes it’s warm and welcoming and easily formed. Just like stone which, while so heavy and enduring to Merlin, seemed to melt and flow into shapes of exquisite perfection under John’s loving guidance.

In remembering, he’s there, once more, with John as they gather by the brazier in the architect’s workshop. Outside an early frost is settling, but within the rooms all is cosy. The distinctive scent of peat smoke fills the chamber, for all that they can afford better; a holdover from John’s childhood and one he’s unwilling to shake.

Merlin walks over (remembers walking over?) to John as he bends to feed more fuel on the blaze. “Let me.”

And John smiles. It’s a lovely smile, folding into crow’s feet at the edge of his eyes before the pain of straightening leaves him hissing.

So Merlin is there, fire forgotten as he tries to soothe. “Stop your worrying, love:” the refusal of comfort by a man now stronger in pride than body.

“Sit. I’ll fetch your papers.” They curl on the large workbench; plans both grandiose and majestic. Such a gifted architect; such beautiful churches.

Such complete hypocrites: the two of them, with their shadowed romance; their lack of Christianity.

John settles into his padded chair. And if the firelight catches at the iron-and-silver in his hair; well, that’s just what time does. To everyone else. And if his fingers are swollen and aching, in need of heat and comfort? Merlin can provide that too.

Merlin always provides for those he loves. A payment of sorts, for the youth that they’d wasted on him, helping pull the strange, broken parts of him back into something approaching humanity; holding Merlin together with stitches made only of their love and their hopes and their naïve belief in something better.

At some point the scales tip: it is Merlin with the faith and youth; they that find themselves aged and hurting.

As for John? _Their_ fire went out long ago, but it leaves behind an ash of perfect tender softness. “I’ll put the kettle to boil before I check the books. How does that sound?” And John smiles, fond.

The accounts show what Merlin already suspects; that the new group at the limekilns are trying to rob John blind. “Young Will is cheating you.”

“I’m sure that you’ll straighten him out for me.” And Merlin will. Or he would.

He sits up into the night as John dozes, working through their comings and goings, and then-

It’s indescribable.

The feeling of a draft putting out a candle.

“John!” But he’s gone. Like that, between one breath and the next. Unexpected and unprepared for. Not even that old, and yet-

Arthur, so young and strong. Perfect and destined and-

All of Merlin’s hopes and dreams; gone. There one day and then, like the tide has risen to wash across the land, just vanished. Taken. Dead-

No.

Think of… Think of Sarah.

Of warm light and laughter over simmering pots of oils; bubbling simples. Of watching the old widow’s hands, never still, as she crushed herbs and ground salt and always, incessantly, tended to her craft.

He’d stopped his journeying because he was hungry; he’d stayed because she needed the roof fixing. A roof was something he _could_ fix.

After the roof, there were always other tasks, some big, but most not. There was small beer, and a warm hearth, and the chance to talk and talk with a woman at the end of her long life, yet still young to him.

_Goddess_ , but he _misses_ her.

He’d only meant to leave long enough for the rumours to die away. Didn’t like the way her neighbours’ pointed words made her gaze grow lonely.

It’s always a risk, when people are old (and, when they’re mortal, they’re always nearly-old), to leave.

He really hadn’t thought it had been so long.

Yet, when next he returned, her little cottage was spilling over with abundance and the noise of small children. There were roses planted in the herb patch. A bemused goodwife directed him to the local churchyard.

It had been a _good_ spot. He remembers looking at it and trying to be glad that, at least, and despite all of her worries for her standing, she’d been laid to rest where she had.

He’d smoothed away the moss; lit her a candle…

He should go back and light her another candle. Where had that been? Ludlow? Maybe if he leaves and-

But he can’t go to Ludlow. He can’t go _anywhere_.

Merlin’s cold, and it’s not a good thing. Around him, there is no escape. Is he in the dungeons? Does Camelot tower above him and a pyre wait outside?

Yes. It must. For it seems that he can smell the very smoke of it. Clearly Arthur has chosen to stand by his laws and this is how their destiny will fail.

Yet when the crackle of the bonfire starts in earnest, Merlin remains where he is, locked away. The screams that he hears… They’re Arthur’s-

Arthur can’t scream. He isn’t here to be heard.

He’s already (still? again?) dead.

And if Arthur isn’t here; then everything Merlin fears and hopes and experiences… It might not be good, but he’ll survive it.

Because, if Arthur isn’t here, then this isn’t the end.


	11. Part 2, Chapter 1:  The Sanctuary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Arthur’s English is getting better, but he’s still missing very substantial chunks of conversations. Rather that keep repeating this, you’ll notice the < English > words interspaced with … as he starts to lose track.

Sal’s hall doesn’t seem so bad when Arthur first arrives in the early afternoon; a heavy canvas sack – one stamped with the hospital’s symbols – slung over his shoulder. The hall itself is nothing like he expected, possessing neither the hospital’s smooth uniform greyness, nor the timber and daub he’s more familiar with. Instead, red square stones have been shaped into perfect uniformity and piled up around more shimmering glass panes than Arthur can count; it looks warm.

When he walks towards the front door, he has a chance to examine the red ‘stones’ more closely, if somewhat briefly. They’re bricks. Arthur’s seen bricks before in the remnants of crumbling Roman villas. He hadn’t realised they’d come back into use.

Sal is talking as they walk inside. Arthur mostly ignores him. It’s something he’s had plenty of practice at, both now and _before_. The man does _love_ to prattle on, for all that the long and, frankly, alarming journey over in a < car > should have already taught Sal that Arthur doesn’t really understand what Sal’s saying. Arthur suspects that Sal doesn’t care.

Beyond the main door is an antechamber of sorts. The floor is covered with a strange felt-like substance, and a staircase ascends one wall while a large rack of shoes lines the other. There are a lot of pairs of shoes there. Even accounting for the fact that some in Sal’s household may have more than one pair, the spread in sizes indicates a full building.

Sal stops to remove his footwear – scuffed brown leather – before sliding his feet into some equally scuffed fabric indoor slippers. Arthur has never seen anything so impractical, and he’s seen what princesses wear.

< Arthur, do you … ? > If Sal is asking what Arthur _thinks_ he is asking, then the answer is, that _no_ he most definitely does not want to change. Arthur determinedly continues forward.

Sal catches his arm.

The touch is light; pressing at a respectable enough location upon Arthur’s forearm. And yet Arthur cannot help his snarl. “ _Do not_ touch me!” He takes a breath. Tries to steady his breathing.

He’d thought maybe Sal would be like Pete; not one to trigger this strange spasm of how-dare-you-touch-a-king and post-Avalon keep-away-from-me. Apparently not. Pete was Pete; a knight, even if one retrained for healing. Sal is… not.

Currently Sal is looking at Arthur. His expression is both more steady than Arthur expected, and less afraid. He is most definitely not offended. < In English, Arthur. >

Oh. Right. < No- > But Arthur does not have the word he needs; is reduced to tapping his own forearm.

< Touching, > Sal says, calmly. < No touching. > And he nods, as though this is both not unexpected and also entirely reasonable. Arthur thinks of Pete’s TV, now many leagues distant – of all those images of people throwing themselves at one another hugging, kissing, slapping, bedding – and suspects that maybe his response is neither.

He commits the new word to memory, because it seems likely he’s going to be needing it a lot more in the future.

They’re interrupted, before they can get much further, by the sounds of footsteps. When Arthur looks over, the doorway into the rest of the building is occupied by a woman in her prime. She’s wearing a knitted gambeson-type garment very similar to Sal’s; a cord necklace like that of the hospital attendants, complete with plastic photo-and-name decoration; and – because apparently this will be a losing battle for Arthur – a pair of ridiculous slippers.

Her eyes flicker over his clothing, evaluating him as much as he does her. It reminds Arthur of the way that Sal had frowned briefly when he had first seen Arthur that morning. She does not frown, and if Arthur had been a less suspicious man, he might never have noticed her assessment at all.

< I thought I … , > she says, while smiling in a frankly alarming manner. < … Arthur? I’m Nkem. >

He guesses that this must be his welcoming from the lady of the hall, and inclines his head. < Hello, Nkem. >

She smiles, then points straight at his feet. < No boots. No shoes. >

Sal’s fetched another pair of slippers from the rack. Arthur gives them a look of disdain. Socks will be quite adequate, he’s certain, if he must remove his boots and-

But he is a guest here. Thus he changes and leaves his boots behind. Thankfully no one seems determined to strip anything else from him, nor to search him for weapons.

Arthur wonders if he should volunteer any further information at this moment, but neither his host nor the lady (or is she another attendant, for all that she’s awfully forward?) give him sufficient pause to assemble his thoughts. The result is that he omits further information more from a lack of time to deliver it, than due to any attempt at secrecy.

Ahead of Arthur, Nkem and Sal are in rapid conversation. He’s not quite certain what they’re so urgent over, although it reminds Arthur of some of the more frantic discussions he’s held on Camelot’s steps. Particularly in those moments when unexpected noble visitors had _just_ turned the corner towards Camelot’s more respectable guest rooms, blissfully unaware that absolutely _nothing_ was prepared for them.

Merlin always seemed to get everything organised though. Apart from the times when he spectacularly failed to even try.

Had he been using magic? Arthur had always assumed Merlin simply delegated the instructions.

It’s a disquieting thought: imagining magic practiced within Camelot for so mundane a purpose as airing out rooms or starting a fire. Although at least it certainly couldn’t have been used in such public activities as helping along the preparation for a feast or arranging entertainment. Could it?

Arthur sighs and rebalances the bag on his shoulders. The point of the fact is that it doesn’t matter; Merlin is dead. Has been for centuries. And with him has gone any chance for clarification.

Arthur tells himself that it’s irritation at the unsolved puzzle that’s eating away at him. The pain is vexing.

It’s only when he nearly walks into Nkem’s back, that Arthur realises how deeply he’d been lost in his own thoughts.

He looks up; then looks past her into what is clearly a dining hall.

There’s a gathering of people, old and young, around a table; plates and serving dishes are scattered along the table’s substantial length. Someone has covered the table with bright plastic sheeting creating an effect that, to Arthur, feels festive. Two weeks in the future have taught him it is probably not.

Everything is very… much. The colours; the plush fabric on the floor and by the windows… It feels more like the chambers of some lord’s spoiled child than a charity barracks. Maybe Arthur’s assumption of being ward in Sal’s hall is closer to the mark than he’s honestly expected.

But if so, then why him? What made Sal – or, before that, Doctor Patel – look at Arthur and place _him_ here?

It doesn’t escape Arthur’s notice that the dishes on the table are empty. Nkem is looking apologetic; Sal, embarrassed. The angle of the sun outside the wide windows is reason enough for the meal to be concluded; they needn’t feel cruel for having eaten without him.

It’s not like they were waiting on a king.

There follows a hurried round of introductions which Arthur fights to memorise, even as he suspects that he’ll forget. There’s an older man called Pete; so apparently that’s a common enough name here (now). Two woman, called Maeve and Ginger, who he suspects he’ll remember because they are clearly sisters; sitting close side-by-side and eating from one plate as they focus more on whispering together than looking up. Another lady (attendant? nurse? volunteer?) with a pendant like Nkem’s, introduces herself as Clara.

The people around the table all look plump and well fed. Maybe a little too well fed; Merlin would have a field day finding not-so-subtle ways to mock them. But at least it lays to rest any fears Arthur holds about going hungry. Even if, for the moment at least, that’s exactly what it appears will happen.

< … your room, Arthur? … later and… >

He nods. There are things that he would like some space to set to rights. < Thank you. >

*

He has, as it transpires, a room to himself.

There is a narrow bed with a duvet (colourful); a wardrobe (in an impressively uniform shade of white, but also, when Arthur tries to open it, rather rickety); a window and a desk and chair; and also a < sink >.

There’s a < light switch > near to the door.

Arthur waits until Sal and Nkem depart, then puts his bag on the bed. He sits down next to it. The bed feels both giving and comfortable underneath him.

Later, he’s not quite certain how long he sat there for.

The sun, at least, has not moved too far when he stirs. But until he knows what is expected of him here, he should stop indulging himself and move more quickly. Who knows how long his break can be expected to last.

He opens the bag.

At the top lie the small collection of sundries he’s collected since waking. Gifts from people he hadn’t expected to think of him: Gerald’s tablet; a card from the attendants; some of Alfie’s < magazines >; two maps from Melanie (one for cars; the other, a thick and detailed compilation for the immediate locale).

Melanie has also given him a little book.

It's clearly styled for children, even in this too-vibrant time. The pictures are simple and full of smiling unreality. The text is larger than is usual now.

_Tales of the Round Table._

Arthur opens it carefully. The pages feel stiff, but written on the flyleaf in the slowly-becoming-familiar script of this new time, she has written to him. In Arthur’s days it is not unusual for a gifting note to be added to such a present. Melanie has improved upon this. For she has added a collection of eleven numbers, used to contact phones; her eleven numbers. Just in case. There are more words below it.

Pete had been there when she handed it over. He’d taken the book from Arthur’s hand, eyes carefully not looking around the ward, and added a message below Melanie’s before slamming the book shut.

In the chaos of that morning, Arthur hadn’t had time to investigate further. Hadn’t got the impression, from Pete, that he was meant to acknowledge the moment.

He has the time to look now. It would appear that Pete has added his name and number, in slap-dash lettering below Melanie’s, followed by the words, _for emergencies_.

Apparently there are yet two people in the world who…

Arthur turns the page abruptly. Then the next and the next.

The pictures are… Well, being in a book, they are larger than the images on Melanie’s phone. That’s about the best Arthur can say of them. He’s pretty certain that horses, even in this far flung future, aren’t meant to be smiling.

In _this_ text, ‘Arthur’ has fiery red hair, which is certainly better than a blond beard. Gwen seems to spend a lot of time swooning, which is almost hilarious for the moment it takes Arthur to realise that he’ll _never_ be able to show this to her.

Maybe because his mood has turned, he’s angry when he can’t tell the difference between any of the knights. That the scribe has got the bit about the sword in the stone correct doesn’t help, because then there’s the sword in a _lake_ and- The text takes him time to figure out as he struggles with some of the odder shaped letters.

Avalon.

He almost shuts the book, but the strange old man in his blue-and-stars is back on the facing page.

The text reads: Merlin.

This time Arthur does shut the book. Puts it on the table, then slides it as far away as he can. Tells himself that it’s rude to burn gifts, especially ones with phone numbers ‘for emergencies’.

Apparently everyone who isn't Arthur knows that Merlin is a powerful sorcerer. _Was_ a powerful sorcerer.

He tries to just acknowledge the truth of that – Merlin, a famous warlock – and move on. Instead Arthur finds himself pacing. For all that the room is his and his alone, it’s not really big enough for that and yet he cannot stop.

For Arthur finds himself caught in a bitterness of the lies that he's believed; the unneeded concerns that he's extended towards Merlin. Because Merlin was always perfectly _fine_. Better than fine; deceptive. Taking Arthur’s confidence and twisting it into-

He reminds himself that Merlin had good cause to start to lie, and little enough reason ever to stop.

And that Merlin had stopped. At the very end.

It doesn't feel like enough.

_Apparently everyone knew, but Arthur._

So. Arthur forces himself to still. Camelot had a fool for a king. Humiliation burns at his cheeks and, for the first time, the separation of time between ‘now’ and ‘then’ feels like it could be a blessing. For there’s no one who knows to mock him. And, being rid of such a fool, surely Camelot had thrived the better in his absence!

Arthur would like to imagine his stupidity was a skill he could move past. Alas! He seems doomed to keep it. For his armour? His sword? Where had they been, when Pete had retrieved them for him?

Why! They had been there all along. Under the bed.

Arthur could have looked at any time. He hadn’t.

Thinking back still brings back the rush of chagrin Arthur felt upon realising that – once his rings had been returned to him – he’d not thought to look for the _rest_ of his belongings. That, until he’d recognised the clang of badly-wrapped armour as Pete struggled to lift the bag free, he’d pushed them from his mind.

At least he’d been able to dress normally (boots, trousers, shirt and belt) before leaving the hospital.

Even the most cursory of glances that morning had made it clear that the bag’s contents need attention.

Carefully Arthur pulls out the items, one by one, placing them on the bed. As he does so, he assesses them for damage while trying to remember the details of his awakening. The mail needs polishing, but mostly seems sound. Even, oddly enough, where Arthur remembers Mordred’s sword entering. A surcoat (it’s not his) has been badly torn; also dirty. Had he been flung? Certainly there are scrapes along his plate, which seems to agree with some violent altercation. Arthur just can’t remember it.

Well. At least this time no one will tell him he turned a dragon into dust as he fell!

The plate’s scrapes should be easily removed by an armourer. Except that Arthur hasn’t seen any indication that people even _wear_ armour in this era.

His cloak, strangely, seems fine.

And then there’s Excalibur.

He draws her free and, raising her to the light of the sun, checks along her length for damage. There is none.

< What is _that_? >

Arthur, still holding Excalibur, turns. He frowns in confusion at Sal, for surely it’s fairly obvious what he’s holding?

“A sword?” Arthur suggests, and then, not knowing the word for it in English, tries, < A knife. A nice knife. >

Sal, standing in the open doorway behind him, does not look struck dumb by the beauty of the weapon. The drooping pile of sandwiches he’s holding, look in imminent danger of sliding onto the floor.


	12. Part 2, Chapter 2:  The Torment of Sir Frederik

When Arthur was a boy, the training master, Sir Frederik, had drilled numerous rules into him. To never drop a blade (though later years taught Arthur just how often a blade could be wrenched from one’s grip); to never leave a blade damp, or worse yet to sheathe it such a state (so that _bloody_ author going on about swords and lakes can just…); and that the correct way to test the keenness of an edge is by gently stroking _over_ , and _never_ along, that blade.

What Sir Frederik never bothered to iterate (probably because, even at that age, it was apparent that Arthur wasn’t a _complete_ idiot) was that no one should ever attempt to lunge forward and take control of a sword from the wrong end. (Although, yes, over the years Arthur has also seen this attempted. _Attempted_ being the key phrase.)

The main impetus behind a sword-swing’s harm comes from the force of the strike as much as from the cutting edge. Which is not the same as saying that a sword has no cutting edge. People who grab at swords tend to lose fingers.

So it’s probably a relief that Sal’s lunge ends with the man’s hand tight over Arthur’s own, while Arthur mostly stands there, shocked. Even Merlin didn’t lack quite so much sense! The entire move is… In seizing the handle, Sal has stepped forward in a way that would have been utterly suicidal if Arthur had meant him any harm. Then he’d closed his hand over Arthur’s. Tried to, at any rate. Sal’s not a small man, but he’s one that appears to have worked most of his time indoors; his hands are fragile for that.

But he’s also acting as Arthur’s… liege… at least for the moment. And so Arthur surrenders the sword to Sal.

(Resolves to take her back, by force if needed. Though Arthur’s not certain _when_ that time would come.)

Sal promptly drops Excalibur. He squeaks something in shock that Arthur can’t make out seeing as he is _trying to ensure his toes don’t become separated from his feet!_

“You are worse than Merlin!” He snaps, any attempts at courtly manners completely lost in that moment. “And you are _very_ lucky indeed that after a ten years of dealing with him I am _quite_ capable of-”

But then his own words catch up with him.

Ten years. That’s how long he’s had Merlin at his side. Gwen he’s known for even longer, though for some of that only as his father’s ward’s shadow.

And they’ve both been dead for centuries.

He sinks down on the edge of the bed and tries to remind himself not to cry.

To his surprise, Sal sits down next to him. Puts a hand on his shoulder. Arthur shrugs it off. If it’s comfort, he doesn’t need it (neither wants it, nor can afford to give into it). And if it’s not comfort? It Sal is one of _those_ lords, then Arthur wants it even less.

Sal lets the moment go, seemingly unoffended.

< I came … lunch. > And, like a farmer offering up a grizzly trophy to prove that their neighbour’s dogs have been at his lambs; Sal gestures to the scattered plate of sandwiches on the floor.

Actually, the sandwiches look pretty appealing. Arthur wonders if any can be redeemed. < Doctor Patel said you don’t … allergies. >

Arthur nods. Looks down at Excalibur, and then to Sal. For someone quite so keen to hold a sword, the man’s making no efforts to pick her back up.

It’s wrong; against everything Arthur’s ever been taught. So he moves to retrieve her and ignores Sal’s sounds of horror and protest.

Sal barely lets Arthur hold the blade before taking her off him again. As _this time_ Arthur is expecting to have to hand Excalibur over there’s a lot less danger of severed extremities. He manages to lay the blade across his forearms, offering her hilt first.

Sal’s face is a strange collage. Expressions too quick and fragmented to follow cross with the transience of sunlight on a brook. Amusement, concern, weariness, charm. He takes the hilt counter-handed, making a shallow dip of his head as he places his other hand under the flat of the blade. It's as if the man expects some great weight to befall him.

Placing Excalibur cross-wise over his lap, Sal leans forward, frowning at her in concentration.

One finger is run down the edge’s length. Arthur winces, wondering if they’ll be back with Melanie and Doctor Patel in the hospital sooner than anyone ever anticipated.

There is no blood.

Arthur fights to keep his face neutral.

< It’s blunted. >

Arthur has no idea what < blunted > means. He does, however, know what no blood means. Though his inspection just moments before hadn’t shown any sign of damage or corrosion… And surely, even if the edge had dulled from that brief spell in the hospital, then it shouldn’t have been so consistent?

If Arthur’s falling in to uneasy concern, Sal is slowly relaxing. He looks at the armour Arthur’s spread across the bedcovers. With one hand, he carefully presses down on the mail, then runs his hand just under the hem, watching as the riveted links spill across his hand.

He looks like he’s never even _seen_ such work before.

As the TV has demonstrated, this can’t be true. And yet…

< So you do reenactments? >

Arthur has no idea what ‘doing’ a < reenactment > would involve, so he shrugs and taps his head. < Head trauma, remember? >

< Reenactments? They’re … >

Eventually Arthur gives up on the stream of words, turning to locate the tablet he’d left to the side. Passes it over. < Photographs, please. >

Sal blinks, startled out of his monolog. < Oh. Um. The wi-fi password. Um. > It takes him a fair length of time to find illustrations of whatever it is that he thinks Arthur should see. Melanie would be hiding a smile.

The pictures show knights in armour, but… It’s like the TV, with the two men in Roman uniform. Some sort of education on- (Arthur makes himself finish the thought) -on what must be distant history to these people. < I don’t get it >: The most useful phrase Nurse Becky taught him.

< Get it? Get _what_? It’s for fun. Sport. Games. >

To the best of Arthur’s knowledge of the world-as-it-has-become, fun involves TV; sport involves chasing balls; and games are (surprisingly still) played with dice and cards. Apparently those words also encompass more.

And if sword fighting is still an appropriate pastime…?

Yet no sooner has the thought entered Arthur’s mind than Sal crushes his plans with an adamantly uttered: < No swords here. > So, that’s what a he should be calling Excalibur; a < sword >.

< Why? > It slips out before he can remind himself of his reduced station.

But, when he replies, Sal’s voice makes it clear his incredulousness isn’t due to Arthur’s discourtesy, but rather that- < It’s dangerous. >

< It’s blunted. > Arthur reminds him; careful to enunciate the word as Sal had.

< It’s heavy. A big, heavy, steel lump. > And, while most of those are new words which Arthur will have to add to his notes and somehow gain a translation for, it’s clear that, freshly-honed edge or not, Excalibur is to be banished from the hall.

Arthur barely has time to wonder where to leave her (does this count as the manner of emergency for which Pete could be called upon?) before Sal stands and, with a degree of cunning and subtlety worthy of a small child, places the sword on top of the wardrobe.

The wardrobe wobbles, looking as though it can barely stand this additional strain.

< The sword … > Arthur assumes that the rest of Sal’s words boil down to: the sword is not to be moved from there.

All this fuss! For _one_ sword! What does Sal think Arthur’s going to do with a single blade? True, he once entered Ismere with little more. (With Merlin – a trusted companion who never stopped lying; a powerful warlock pretending to be just a servant.) But that had been different.

That had been for Camelot; for his men and for-

Pushing the memories aside, Arthur reminds himself to be thankful for small mercies. At least Sal didn’t notice the dagger hidden in Arthur’s boot when making him don the hall’s ridiculous slippers. Maybe he should retrieve that before it’s stumbled across?

< Come. > Sal beckons before he stoops to load the fallen sandwiches onto a plate. Arthur tries to help him, half expecting to bang their heads together or slip spectacularly on a slice of cheese (stranger, more mortifying, events have punctuated key moments in Arthur’s life), but everything proceeds smoothly. Within a matter of moments, aside from the odd smear of butter, it’s hard to tell that any food-related crisis has taken place.

Arthur looks mournfully at the plate as Sal takes it with him towards the door. Clearly he subscribes to Gwen’s opinion that food from the floor should not be eaten. (Normally, Arthur would agree. But hunger is hunger, and this can’t be any worse than the crusts he ate while held hostage by Saxons.)

Sal raises an eyebrow. Beckons again. < Come. Time to meet the kitchen. > Apparently his duties begin now.


	13. Part 2, Chapter 3:  The Silence of the Grave

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit of a trigger warning here. In this and following chapters, there are several moments where Arthur ends up looking at the world from a rather medieval viewpoint. In particular, some of Arthur’s thoughts relate to personal relationships. At one point in this chapter, the word ‘choice’ is used in a way that readers are unlikely to agree with. This is deliberate, and is part of an introspection that’s going to be rather slow to unpick in this story.

Perhaps all of the trouble with Excalibur should have forewarned Arthur: that first night in Sal’s hall is dreadful. Not for any particularly gruesome reason; just the sheer unrelenting silence of the place.

It doesn’t start out that way. Sal takes him to the < kitchens > and shows Arthur how to make up fresh sandwiches. As this means that Sal is, in a roundabout way, giving Arthur the freedom of the hall’s supplies, Arthur accepts this labour as a more than reasonable repayment for knowing he can eat as needed.

After that, Arthur is left alone. There are English words for him to try to understand, maps to study, and Gerald’s tablet’s libraries of videos.

But there is also Arthur’s mail; flecks of rust colouring occasional rivets.

Arthur goes in search of polish. It’s a quest which seems doomed to failure until a young boy, Timothy Andrew Hannover, takes time enough to both understand Arthur’s search and then to aid him. The boy’s eyes are earnest and guileless and, when he finds for Arthur a strangely-stoppered pot under the kitchen sink, the smile which splits his face surpasses that of many a tourney champion.

< Thank you, Timothy. >

The boy smiles once more, wide and brash, and departs with a wave. Arthur gets the impression that Timothy is not… entirely normal.

Maybe that is why Timothy is here.

Is that why Arthur, too, is here?

It’s a question that lingers. And, when he’s later summoned for dinner, Arthur takes a moment to observe the scene before he walks in.

Dinner is once more held at the long table. Sal sits at the top. There are two women wearing name badges further down the table. Around them, the other residents are scattered. One of the name badge-wearing women is helping spoon-feed someone; the other attendees seem to have no such problems eating. Most appear perfectly normal.

< Arthur. > It’s the second lady of the hall, Clara. < You … here, > and she gestures to a chair besides Timothy. Timothy, bouncing with clear and uncontained glee, is clearly the root instigator of this positioning.

< Hello, Timothy. >

< Hi, Arthur. … polish? >

Polish? Arthur’s fingers are still stained with the substance, despite the time he spent scrubbing them in the sink. He’ll need a new cloth, too. The one Timothy found for him is mauled beyond reuse. But the mail itself… < Good. > Arthur nods. < Thank you. >

Timothy looks poised to launch into yet more questions (Arthur has a dreadful moment to consider that he’s somehow the reincarnation of George, here to torment Arthur with perfectly-correct servitude), but Arthur’s saved, however briefly, by Clara. < Tea? > She asks. < Or coffee? >

Arthur has tried – once – both of these regularly offered beverages. < No. Thank you. >

< Juice? >

“Wine?” He tries, not expecting much.

< G’win? Wine? > Sal, frowning at the top of the table, mispronounces.

Arthur nearly rolls his eyes; of all words to have more-or-less-survived, trust it to be that one! Gwaine would be delighted.

He wouldn’t be so delighted by the way that Sal is shaking his head. Clara smiles as she says, < No wine. >

< Water, please. > At least it’s plentiful and clean.

< OK, > she smiles, then points to a transparent jug part way along the table. < Helen … > A young woman with russet red hair and Morgana’s preference for black and lace, rolls her eyes, but complies. Clearly Helen. After she passes the water to Arthur, she sits back, smirking at the women she’s curled up close to. Arthur thinks the other woman is Maeve. Didn’t she have a sister here? Ginger?

As the meal passes, food is handed around. Drinks are topped up. There are no servants, although Sal and the ladies seem to help where needed. It’s hard for Arthur to pin down, but there is definitely _something_ about the place and at least some of the people herein. Yet, as for what that could be?

Who knows? Maybe they’re also from fifteen centuries in the past? Maybe they’re from even _longer_ ago?

Briefly Arthur entertains himself with the fantasy that he’s surrounded by visitors from a score of different points in history. That, if only they could communicate, he might be dining with a Gladiator from Rome; a priestess from Egypt; a boat builder from the lands of the Norsemen…

< Arthur? > Timothy leans over, enthusiastic. < Do you …? >

< What? >

< Trains, Arthur. > Timothy looks at him as though Arthur’s forgotten his own name. Personally, Arthur’s beginning to think that it might have been easier if the Sidhe _had_ emptied his mind. < … trains? >

It is, in short, a long meal.

By the time Arthur’s permitted to leave (after < siding the table > ), he feels exhausted. He’s certain that he’s had days filled with greater exertion. Yet the pummelling that his mind is taking? The new information and customs? The unexpected expectations?

He wants to fall face down in bed just as soon as he is allowed and thence sleep until everything goes back to the way it should be.

Arthur’s actually in the main hallway, feet making the determined trek to the stairs and thereafter his room, when it occurs to him that now would be a good moment to retrieve his dagger. It shouldn’t take long.

Indeed, it doesn’t.

It’s when he moves to leave the shoe-filled antechamber that he hears the quiet laughter. Arthur doesn’t mean to intrude, though that’s unmistakably what he does.

Two forms are sheltering in the twist of the staircase; limbs and mouths entwined. It takes Arthur perhaps longer than it should to realise that he’s looking at Ginger and Helen. For a moment, he’s caught, his mind moving in rapid circles of calculation as he comes to understand that they must be like those knights who enter into a spiritual brotherhood; sharing a household and eschewing marriage.

He’d not realised that women might also-

Of course, there were the two wool-spinners who lived opposite Gwen’s former home in the lower town. It’s not like anyone _believed_ they were sisters…

Well, if these two women are as without resources and connections as Arthur now is, then he can see how a more traditional family may be denied to them. And it’s true that the brotherhoods Arthur had seen entered into had always seemed to bring with them their own tenderness and warmth; definitely an understandable choice for poor, younger sons unlikely to inherit.

It’s about then that Arthur realises that the giggles have stopped. He returns to the moment to realise that he is, in return, the object of the women’s attention. It’s not a friendly regard. The two women look at him, eyes heavy and judging.

It crosses his mind that he _might_ appear to be spying.

< What? > The looks-like-Morgana woman (Helen?) snaps.

< Sorry. > Arthur inclines his head, briefly aware that if he attempts any greater courtesy the dagger hastily hidden beneath his shirt will either topple free or, potentially more likely, impale him. < My bed? > and he points past them, to the floor above.

In Camelot, this is where things would go wrong. The dagger would fall out, with a clatter, onto the polished wood of the lower stairs. Or, worse, it wouldn’t _fall_ , but rather would end up laying _just so_ ; suggestive and scandalous in equal amounts.

And, somehow, Merlin would know. Really, Arthur should have guessed that he had _some_ secret identity. Surely no normal servant would have ever risked such open mockery and insubordination? Arthur should have seen through his act immediately and-

But he hadn’t.

(Had wanted, perhaps too much, to believe that even a prince could make just one friend.)

It’s his thoughts that he flees, moreso than the women’s whispered indignation. But thoughts are not such an easy thing to be done with.

In the privacy of his room, Arthur lies down. But the room, so bright and pleasant in the day, is oppressive at night. It’s the silence, Arthur realises. And, realising this, gets up to open his door, hoping that the sounds of the living will chaise away his loneliness. The corridor’s not much louder than his room, but it’s better than nothing.

Arthur lies back down.

Hears footsteps on the hallway. Ekpe: clearly on sentry duty.

< Fire … > She says. And while Arthur might not know the details of this fire she fears, he’s seen the devastation caused by flames tearing through livelihoods before. If the rule of this house is that doors remain closed ‘because of fire’, then he can abide by it. He rises the close the door.

The third time he lies down, he falls into a fitful sleep.

He dreams.

In Arthur’s dreams he hears a voice, hoarse and broken, begging for an end. He remembers the sounds to the hunt, and the weeping souls that fled before it. He remembers the press of cold steel in his palm-

Yellow light, unnatural but doubtless man-made, spills around him. Arthur blinks his eyes open to realise he’d not drawn the curtains. Outside, a light, positioned for no purpose Arthur can fathom, shines directly in through his window. Arthur’s never been so grateful to be woken before.

_Why had they let him go free?_

Did _they let him go free?_

(Is he still dead?)

It's only now, as he lies with naught but the sound of his heartbeat shaking his chest, that Arthur comes to realise how truly free he had felt in the hospital. How surrounded by humanity, and grounded in a world of logic and _time_.

Safe.

The window across the room has a latch on it. Arthur opens it, ducking his head out into the cool night breeze and letting sounds – real and chaotic – flood in around him. Loud hoots that don’t sound human and the swaying hiss of tall ash trees in Sal’s grounds: that’s what he hears. There’s a strange ticking noise that seems linked to lights illuminating a stripy part of the road’s surface, and a distant murmuring roar both like and unlike the sea.

Arthur can’t hear a single night bird, nor horse, nor baying dog.

But what he can hear is enough. Because it’s far too full of chaos for a fey-controlled enchantment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Run ‘wine’ through an English to Welsh translator. Go on. Gwaine dares you.


	14. Interlude: Lee

“Two more weeks and I could have gone with you!”

“There’ll be a next time.” Lee can't really understand her disappointment; pay is pay either way.

“Exactly! And that next time had better be better!”

Which is Emma in a nutshell. Not jealous or bitter when others get what she wants, but aspirational.

The first time Lee met his new trainee, he had misunderstood that. Had thought her a bit of a joke. Wearing a baby pink 'business' dress with lacquered nails and perfect hair: she'd not exactly been the normal Inquisitor type.

And then there'd been her _voice_. He'd thought she'd been putting it on. How was anyone meant to take her seriously talking like _that_?

Lee's girlfriend at the time had set him straight on that one. He can still remember her scorn as she’d snapped, _Since when does the pitch of a voice effect the content it delivers?_

Lee's ex has proved correct: Em is serious. Lethally so.

From the outside, looking in, she sails through her studies with natural aptitude (yes, and in the physical aspects, too!) while somehow managing to hold down a relationship long enough to get engaged. (Most of the team Lee works with bounce from broken heart to dead-end flings, then back again.)

Em, as Lee's mum would say, has got her act together.

Worse, Em makes it look effortless.

For himself, Lee has fully accepted that one day in the not-too-distant future, she's going to be his boss. Possibly his boss's boss's boss. (Lee’s looking forward to the day: it never hurts to be favourably known by those in power.) In the meantime, she makes a very efficient minion.

And, as it turns out, Lee ends up wishing she could have come on his assignment, too. At least then he'd have had someone to delegate the mud and blood parts to. Plus, he’d love to see how she tackled her first gutted farm animal.

*

When Lee first joined the Inquisition, the recruiting sergeant had mentioned ‘rooting out magic’. Lee had carefully not looked sceptical. The money was good, and that counted for more than his potential employer’s sanity.

He's seen a lot since then.

He seeing more every day.

Yet, standing knee-deep in brambles two miles out from Aviemore, Lee can’t help but think that this has got to be the most depressing expedition yet.

A cat.

Racing halfway up the country as part of a team of nine seasoned inquisitors, followed by spending two days scouring the countryside, and this is what they have to show for it? A small, hissing furball, with her neck trapped in their snare.

Twin fangs, feline enough at first glance, save for the venom that they’re dripping, are all that marks her out from a more run-of-the-mill moggie.

Chris, two doors down from Lee’s mum, looks after strays. With her ears flat against her skull, and her tail fluffed up like a bottlebrush, the Savage Sheep-killer of Scotland looks like she needs wrapping in one of Chris’s old towels, carrying off down the road to a few square meals, and – possibly – a bit of de-fleaing.

“How bad do you think this poison is?” Calum: the other half of Lee’s two-man crack cat hunting duo. Having managed to bark one hand on a rough style, he’s fretting about getting a little bit of kitty slobber on him.

“You’ve barely even broken the skin. I’m certain you’ll be fine.”

“But, I could _die_. I could-”

Lee, bored with the tenth rendition of this, ignores Calum’s whining in favour of leaning closer to study their newest captive. (The lab will be pleased to receive her, even if Lee’s sure they’ll never share their findings with a lowly captain.) His eyes track over the admonition, searching out other clues.

How does she differ from a more mundane cat? Why is she _here_ in the Cairngorms? Was she brought in by someone with nefarious intent and escaped, or have generations of murder-cats lived in the locality?

Perhaps, most pressingly, is how on earth does something that small take on a sheep and win, even _with_ poison?

Then he curses.

Calum jumps. “What!”

“It’s a bloody mother cat.”

“A bloody what cat? Mother cat? There are baby monsters? Where?” Apparently confusion trumps fear; Calum crowds in close to Lee as if he’ll be able to see kittens just by peering harder into the dense thickets.

There are, naturally, no poisonous kittens in the immediate area. Although the recent start to the sheep killing suddenly seems like it might make more sense. Nothing like extra mouths to feed to make a new parent throw caution to the wind.

“Forget the kittens; somewhere out here there’s a tomcat.”

*

They stay for another day. Search parties fan out and traps are baited. The abomination gets fed fresh lamb chops.

Whether in the woods, or by the fields, Lee takes his every step torn between thrill at the hunt and trepidation that maybe he is the pray. It’s silly really. A cat – even a poisonous one – is no fearsome creature from myth. Not a dragon, or a griffin, or a chimera.

But neither is it normal.

Magic. When they’d first told Lee about it, he’d been cynical. When he first _saw_ it, he’d been startled. (Maybe, deep down in the corner of his mind that he’ll never confess exists to the screening psychologists, even _fascinated_.) And then he’d seen his first murder.

More of a massacre.

Blood all up the walls and viscera smeared about like any one of a dozen slasher films. Except real.

It makes it easy to walk past the caged cat without guilt. She might not be going to a better place, but her fate is still for the best. Knowledge is power; and they _need_ this knowledge. Need to know more about the monsters than the monsters know about them.

When the time comes to abandon their search, Lee is not surprised they still total only one feline. For an organisation whose watchword is ‘stealth’, a good many of his fellow inquisitors are far from quiet.

So, when everyone else moves to board the coach, readying for the journey south, Lee makes a vague excuse. Stays behind.

“You’re still not going to get promoted,” Calum mutters as he shuffles past Lee. His voice is scathing even as his face betrays sympathy. “So there’s no point in brown-nosing.”

Lee hums like he’s listening and promptly ignores the sound advice.

After they depart, Lee takes another circuit of the woods. He's careful to be quiet and hopes that he'll spot something as yet unseen.

For it doesn't seem right to leave the kittens out there, starving in the cold, waiting for their mother to return. And, if he finds them? There's no need to send them back to Guildford in a box; to the receiving end of knives and painful curiosity. It's not their fault that they're monsters.

Surely a quick twist to their necks will be kinder?

*

In the end, it’s the dark that cuts him short. With only bramble scratches on his hands, Lee makes his way to the station, to catch the trains back south. Once on board, he carefully washes his hands, then orders a beer and a sandwich to sate the hunger he’s worked up.

As he relaxes into his seat, he wonders how long the poor little mites will last.


	15. Part 2, Chapter 4:  Timothy and Ginger

The next morning, ill-rested and with his skin-haunted by moments best ignored, Arthur is escorted by Sal to a local tailors. There he’s piled high with strangely textured garments in varying colours. (Arthur leans towards the red shades, but after accepting that the < denim > trousers aren’t so coloured, settles on black.)

Back in the hall, he’s handed over to Timothy who, with a delight worthy of George, shows Arthur how to go about < laundry >. Mostly it’s a task that seems to involve piling the garments from one white receptacle into another and occasionally adding fine powder. While Arthur is aware that the castle’s wet rooms had rather a lot more billowing steam and bare-armed women ringing water out of things, this introduction does rather seem to suggest that such labour is every bit as simple as he’d always assumed.

After his new clothes, warm and dry, come out of the < tumble dryer >, Timothy suggests they have a drink. Leaving the basket by the kitchen door, Arthur follows Timothy to the < fridge >. Whatever it is that Timothy’s decanting, Arthur can’t bring himself to trust. Frankly, the fluid is an odd colour and there are far too many lumps in it.

< Water. Is good. > He heads over to the sink.

< Oh! For … > A long, flowing tirade has Arthur turn towards the door to see Ginger framed there.

Remembering his open-to-misinterpretation behaviour the night before, it’s a battle not to blush. But after _that_ incident in the middle of the Council Chamber with his trousers and Merlin, to say nothing of having his intended unexpectedly enter his rooms with the court physician as he prepared for a bath, Arthur has learned the trick to these things.

Namely; ignore it.

< Ginger. Good morning. >

< Good morning? > She manages to twist the greeting into almost comic disapproval. < Arthur is … ? > and she gestures towards the floor. Apparently the laundry basket is annoying her. Arthur can’t see why. It’s hardly in danger of tripping her.

Still. She’s a lady, and maybe they have _ideas_ about things in the future. Arthur moves the basket further away from the door, just in case. < Sorry. >

< No. > And she actually wags a finger at him before picking the basket and upending it all over the counter. It’s an action so familiarly similar to many he’s carried out, that Arthur flinches, half-expecting her to throw the emptied basket at his head, just as he would have if Merlin had left Arthur’s clothes in such a rumpled mess.

Ginger, it appears, is not quite so ready for horseplay.

Rather she drops the basket on the floor, makes a very pointed gesture (complete with uninterpretable ranting) at the laundry, and then makes her way over to the sink. There she fills some sort of jug.

For himself, Arthur regards the tumbled fabric in front of himself with trepidation. It’s not so much that he now has to figure out how to neaten it (well, not entirely). But also the awareness that there are smallclothes in the mix and a lady in the room (one who might already think him a bit of a pervert).

He prods thoughtfully at the collection; gives Ginger a quick look to see how carefully she’s watching him (not at all; she’s fetching a mug and a colourful cardboard box); and then picks up a shirt on the theory that it should be a harmless place to start.

Or not. Apparently everything is tangled up in one another.

In Camelot, everything (more precisely his smallclothes) would then fall humiliatingly all over the floor, possibly even getting as far as the lady’s feet. Here, things mostly just scatter a bit more on the countertop. It seriously crosses Arthur’s thoughts that maybe the future has managed to add something to the air to inhibit clumsiness, just like the videos tell Arthur that they’ve added something to the water (fluoride?) to prevent damage to teeth.

Carefully placing the shirt, front down, onto the counter top, Arthur smooths it flat. (It’s still somewhat rumbled, but as he can neither see an open fireplace, nor the heavy iron blocks used for pressing, Arthur decides that he will live with this). Then he carefully folds the shirt lengthways in thirds, the better to ensure that no creases fall along the central… Well, there’s no stitching or panelling on the garment, but still... Folds it so that it will not crease along the centre of the chest. Then folds it again from the bottom up, so that the resulting crease will fall at about belt level. He places the shirt in the basket. Repeats this with the other shirts. Looks at the trousers and decides to continue instead by pairing the socks. The smallclothes are quickly jammed in a corner of the basket; Ginger had better not inspect closely enough to comment.

The heaver shirts - < jumpers > \- are folded much as the shirts are, although the one with an attached cowl does give Arthur pause. He decides that it can be pressed carefully flat along the back of the jumper. Then then there’s no putting off the trousers. Arthur gives them a thoughtful frown.

In the end he folds the heavy fabric lengthways along the seam, then simply thirds the length. Hopefully the fabric won’t hold any creases and, if it does, the lower crease at least will be hidden in his boots.

Standing back, he realises that Timothy and Ginger are both watching him with the keen fascination of Arthur’s knights observing Princess Mithian with a bow.

< Huh, > Ginger says.

< Are you on the …, too? > Timothy asks.

And Arthur would try to understand Timothy’s question, really he would, but now that he’s got attention to focus on other things, he’s suddenly aware of the fact that Ginger’s made her drink.

It… smells like camomile.

“What is that?” He drifts over to her, eyes for nothing other than her mug. Because water’s good – water’s brilliant; there have been definite moments in Arthur’s life where he’s have given not-insubstantial rewards to people in exchange for water – but it’s all that he’s had to drink since waking apart from the occasional apple press. “That smells utterly… Do people still drink infusions?”

< Um. What? >

He looks up to see Ginger shielding her mug as if anticipating doing battle with Arthur over it.

Oh. Right. English.

Arthur points at the mug. < What is it? >

< Tea, > Ginger lies. Because Arthur has _seen_ tea. Has nearly been forced to ingest the concoction by Pete before realising that it _wasn’t_ medicine, and thus that drinking it was optional. < Herbal tea. >

< Herbal tea? > There are different types? Perhaps he should have expected that. < Where? >

And so, as a reward for his perseverance with laundry, Ginger introduces Arthur to the wonders of the colourful boxes by the < kettle >. They smell of berries and flowers. One, that stings at Arthur’s nose, is apparently ‘ginger’. And, in a shockingly green case, there is mint.

It’s turning into a wonderful day. Arthur thinks that Ginger might just be his favourite person since Melanie.

*

The day gets better. After putting away his clothing, Arthur settles down in the common area with his maps. There are wide tables here, reminiscent of his Council Chambers. Arthur can open out the ‘car map’ and trace the routes that carve up this new Albion.

There’s the M1 crawling up from Londinium and along the east of the so-called Pennine Mountains. Sprouting from midway up the M1, the M6 cuts under the mountain spine, before racing up the west of the country. Birmingham; Sandbach; Stoke-on-Trent; Warrington; Preston; Lancaster; Carlisle… At some point the route crosses a boundary, entering into a new territory, and is renamed the A74(M), before ending in Glasgow.

Arthur tries to commit these new names to memory. There’s a lot; it’s going to take time.

At some point Timothy comes over, face eager and a pile of papers carefully held in his hands. Arthur gestures, permitting him access to the end of the table. After the boy settles, Arthur realises that Timothy, too, has brought maps. But the lines that they trace are different to those in Arthur’s book.

< Trains, > Timothy taps at his, before gesturing to Arthur’s, < and cars. >

Then he shows Arthur images of trains on his tablet. Shows him too, where his < railways > are marked as simple black lines snaking through Arthur’s myriad of < roads >. They settle in for the afternoon, studying their respective documents.

*

Dinner that night is… painful.

The dish that Arthur selects burns, and not with heat. He has a serious moment to consider that he’s been poisoned, before a laughing Ginger helps him to mix < yoghurt > into the < curry >. But there’s mint tea to drink, which is good. And, if Helen’s still giving him dark looks, then Ginger seems to have forgiven Arthur the previous night’s oddity.

After that, the days blur together.

Arthur works to keep his room clean; to do laundry (which is never ending); and to dry dishes coming from the < dish washer >. He studies his maps; he and Timothy taking turns to quiz one another on points of import in their respective areas. (It’s a pastime that Timothy is almost alarmingly good at.)

At some point Officer MacAdam comes by, asking after more stories about Arthur’s scars, but Arthur can see little purpose in recounting them, especially when every word must be struggled with to locate. The deeds are long gone; surely even the most esoteric of scholar cannot care? And as entertainment…? Arthur’s seen the < programmes > that people watch now. There seems little place for blood and mud and betrayal in them.

Officer MacAdam smiles gently, displaying no disappointment at his poor story telling. When she departs, she leaves him with a small, stiff square of parchment. Now Arthur has three phone numbers. That night he presses the parchment between the pages of Melanie’s book, then puts the book to the back of the wardrobe (where he doesn’t have to see it).

Later, Mister Peterson visits, but the purpose of _that_ encounter is of even greater obscurity to Arthur. Mostly Mister Peterson talks to Sal while Arthur tries (and fails) to pick out any recognisable and meaningful words.

*

As he’s leaving Sal’s office that evening (Mister Peterson remains within) Arthur turns along the ground floor corridor, passing by the common room. For a moment he thinks that it’s empty. But then he sees Ginger there, with her sister Maeve. They are not… being sisterly.

He’s actually taken three or four paces on, along the corridor, before his conscience catches up with him. He walks back and knocks on the open doorframe.

And, if Arthur had not been certain before, the way that they guiltily jerk apart is all the confirmation he needs.

_What about Helen?_ Arthur imagines her, instead of him, walking down that darkened corridor. Perhaps searching; worried about her companion’s absence. _She’s going to see, if you carry on like this! Your betrayal will hurt her and so now you’ve left me in a dreadful dilemma. Do I tell her when it’s not my place to, or do I keep your secret? You should act with more care and concern, for everyone’s honour if not for their feelings._

That’s what he wants to say. What he actually manages is: < Helen. >

Ginger and Maeve both relax; curl closer in together.

< It’s only Arthur, > Maeve murmurs against Ginger’s hair, just loud enough for Arthur to catch.

It is _not_ the message he intended to impart.

Anger gets him across the threshold. At least Gwen and Lancelot never flaunted their mutual admiration quite so openly. That Arthur’s aware of.

Arthur’s steps falter, but the women must have read something on his face. There’s a moment where he’s’ going to be told to go away; he can see it cross Maeve’s face. She’ll tell him that Ginger’s affections are none of his concern.

And then Ginger, apparently poised between amused irritation and thoughtful sympathy, settles on the latter. < I love Maeve. >

“Oh.” So maybe she’s broken with Helen, and Arthur is operating on last week’s gossip?

It softens his affront, even as it leaves him somewhat exasperated. Truly, he’d known that the scullery maids seemed to transfer their affections from one groom to the next at the drop of a pin! (At least if Merlin’s prattling was to be believed.) But that was the prerogative of a servant. It’s not as though the honour of their name depended on the consistency of their intentions!

He’d thought Ginger a more honourable class of woman.

(Arthur also suspects that the maids did little more than gossip together about the objects of their affections, rather than holding them in the clinches Ginger seems so willing to favour. Apparently the TV wasn’t lying about modern mores; she has the morality of Gwaine!)

Then Ginger adds more words, throwing Arthur’s understanding into confusion. < And I love Helen. And Helen loves Maeve. It’s all good. >

< But. > Arthur frowns. Remembers the guilt in their actions. Cannot think of how to ask about their secrecy. Gestures vaguely to the doorway.

< Don’t tell Sal. >

< Why? > Arthur can see an argument around not telling _Helen_. For there’s a possibility that Ginger’s lying about whatever strange arrangement she has come to with her favourites. But with no man affronting her honour (no man to… _complicate_ … the lineage of the household), telling Ginger’s liege seems… more than a little irrelevant.

< Plausible deniability, > she says, cryptically. Which helps not a jot, as Arthur doesn’t understand any of the words she’s uttering.

He’s working up to asking for clarification, when Ginger adds, < Good night, Arthur. >

_That_ , at least, Arthur does understand.

*

The next day Ginger interrupts Arthur’s study time with Timothy. He half expects her to allude to the night before. Certainly doesn’t expect her to take up Gerald’s tablet and play with it for several moments.

When she hands it back to him, she’s loaded several < tabs > with illustrated boxes showing people.

< Some webcomics, Arthur, about ... Because you have head trauma. >

Arthur studies the first one thoughtfully. The images don’t look too different from those in the children’s book Melanie had given him, being too brightly coloured and with exaggerated features. However, unlike the book, here the different boxes seem to follow immediately on from one another, telling a story that, even without trying to read the text inked over the images, Arthur can follow.

He reaches the end of the first one quickly enough, and frowns, wondering why Ginger would want to show him a picture-based story of men kissing men. In the final panel, one of the men kneels, offering up a ring. It's clearly a proposal.

Ginger gestures for him to look at the others even as she claps a hand on his shoulder. After a pause she turns to leave the room. < Be good. Bye. >

It’s only when she’s gone, that Arthur realises that her touch had… just felt like a normal touch should.

*

Time passes; the summer feeling strangely endless, uninterrupted as it is by council meetings or skirmishes or crises.

And Arthur can’t understand where this land’s peaceful excess comes from. The more he studies the maps, the less sense it makes. So many houses, and so few fields (so little forest). How do they feed themselves?

Frustrated by the nonsense of it, Arthur steps out into the hall’s . As training ground go it’s not that spacious, but there’s still enough openness to take repeated circuits of. And, if he’s not allowed his sword, then no one’s done more than raise their eyebrows when Arthur has reclaimed a broken broom pole for drills.

The pole is too light, leaving Arthur feeling like a child playing in the Lower Town’s streets, but it’s better than nothing.

The night is drawing in when Arthur decides that he’s worn himself out as much as can be expected, and heads back inside. He’s actually at the showers before remembering that he’d left his towel folded on a shelf in the laundry room. Leaving his toiletries by the sink, he quickly races down the stairs.

There’s an abrupt, cold draft, and the hall’s main door bangs open.

Heart hammering, Arthur spins, hands groping for a sword which isn’t there.

Then he recognises Ginger.

She doesn’t seem to have spotted him yet. Instead she’s kicking off her outdoor shoes, movements made awkward by the glass bowl of liquid she’s holding in her hands. It looks brim-full.

It’s odd, but Arthur makes himself back away; continuing on to the laundry room. Ginger’s business is her own. Besides, as the sweat has cooled on his body, he’s started to feel the evening’s chill. Thoughts of lovely, warm water cascade through him. The sooner he fetches his towel, the sooner he can return to comfort.

He’s bounding up the < carpeted > stairs when he realises that, in her care with the bowl in her hands, Ginger has barely turned the halfway corner.

Arthur stumbles his feet to a stop a careful step below her, not wanting to risk brushing past her and-

With a gasp, water spills everywhere and the bowl tumbles out of Ginger’s grip.

“Blast!” Arthur stoops to fetch the bowl, miraculously un-shattered by its rough handling. He _cannot_ get over how amazing these futuristic constructions are. “I really didn’t mean to startle you and-”

Realising that he’s apologising in his British, not English, Arthur straightens up to offer Ginger an apologetic smile. Hopefully the water wasn’t so important and-

She’s pressed against the wall, face surely too shocked to be accounted for by Arthur’s hasty appearance.

Reflexively, Arthur turns to look behind himself.

There’s no one there.

When he looks back, Ginger seems to have gathered herself somewhat. She presses one hand to her sternum, lets out a shaky laugh, and then takes the bowl from Arthur. < Oops. > She laughs again.

Arthur knows that laugh; it’s the sound of someone telling themselves that nothing’s hiding in the shadows. < You okay? >

< I just… > That shaky laugh. < In the water, I- >

Arthur looks at the damp fabric at their feet. Looks back at Ginger. < Yes? What? >

< I thought I … > And he cannot follow her, except for the odd word. _A mouth. Eyes. Seeing. Water._

< Eyes in the water? > Chill runs through Arthur. That doesn’t sound right.

But Ginger is relaxing, visibly, in front of him. < No eyes, Arthur. That’s silly. You … I saw you. Yes. That’s it … and then … Silly me! >

“I was standing behind you. On a lower step.” But he can’t say that in English, and he’s not certain that Ginger is saying what it is that he fears she is saying. Why can’t he _just understand the damn language of his own land!_

Arthur forces himself to take a deep breath. To calm down, because his frustrations aren’t going to help here. And as he breathes, he smells something… earthy. < What is it? > He points at the wet carpet.

< Oh, > Ginger laughs, < It’s just water. >

It had been murky; even now the stain on the carpet is lined with green and bits of broken vegetation. < Water? > It’s certainly like no drinking water Arthur has seen in this future.

< From the brook. > She explains, smiling. < For the spell. >

Arthur blinks. Surely he can’t have heard that correctly? What does water have to do with English lettering? < What? >

< Come. Look. Tonight. > Reaching into one of her pockets, she pulls out a notebook and quickly tears a piece of paper free, scribbling down some something that she hands over to Arthur with her finger raised to her lips in secrecy. < Hush! >

Then she looks at the still-spreading damp on the carpet, at the gathering darkness outside, grimaces, and says something that includes the words < tap water >.

Arthur watches Ginger continue up the stairs, then looks at the ‘secret note’ she’s given him. _03:00; Room A21._


	16. Part 2, Chapter 5:  On the Perils of Being a Keen Teacher

Room A21 is on the ladies’ side of Sal’s hall. It is not, as has been made very clear to Arthur, allowed for men to venture outside the B (male) and C (common) areas. Indeed, at the top of the stairs, ladies should turn to the left, and men to the right. As far as Arthur is aware, even Sal doesn’t venture to the left.

All of which makes Ginger’s desire for secrecy understandable. His presence in her room, whatever her actual reason, could be _misunderstood_.

Which would be unfair. For, with her two lady loves, Arthur’s fairly certain she’s not planning on accosting him with dishonourable attentions.

He doesn’t know why she has requested his presence; as far as she knows, he’s no king or prince to offer her guidance or support. Indeed, in this strange new time where he can hardly seem to find his feet, he’s doubtful he could even act as a source of helpful ‘common’ sense. Still. She has invited him hither.

At the threshold, Arthur pauses to knock.

There are no voices within; he'd expected Helen and Maeve also present at the least, but when Ginger opens the door she is alone.

Behind her, the room is lit in gentle electric light. Although Arthur doubts Ginger’s swarm of coloured firefly-like illumination is intended to feel intimate, it does. The bones of the room revealed are similar to Arthur’s – bed, wardrobe, desk, sink – but so buried under a depth of personalisation as to all but disguise that similarity. Arthur hadn’t realised quite how powerful Ginger must be, to have accumulated such worldly goods.

(But, if she is so powerful, then why is she _here_? What is Sal’s hall, if not a place of charity?)

There are images rendered on thin parchment and mounted on the walls. (They are mainly of tall, dark women in flowing dresses of the style favoured by the ‘Queen Guinevere’ of Melanie’s books, or of dramatic looking dragons observing sunsets with a fervour which Arthur doesn’t deem likely.) Clothes, both vibrant in colour and varied in texture, spill out of the wardrobe and across the desk’s chair. And on the desk-

< It's my alter. For remembering >

And he might not know the word < alter >, but since Arthur awoke the neither the doctor nor the nurses nor the officer have shut up about < remembering >, so he understands that bit well enough.

There are photographs there. Proper ones, of reality, rather than the fanciful paintings on the walls. A family. Smiles that look like they could have been genuine. Laughter: time-frozen and soundless.

Arthur reaches out to touch one, then stalls. He feels like he's intruding.

< It's okay. > Ginger says, and hands him the nearer picture. < ... mum ... dad. >

< Dead? > Arthur hates that he can't make that question softer.

Ginger smiles, but it wavers like water's flowing between them. < Car crash. > He doesn't have to know what a crash is, to imagine how those massive metal monstrosities could grieve someone. Has seen too many riders crushed under horses; too many accidents from carts too rickety to take more damage. < ... leg ... > And she lifts the hem of her skirt to show Arthur-

The moon catches on the texture of her skin, rendering past pain into something shimmering and almost beautiful.

Carefully Arthur places the photograph back where it had come from. Looks at the other items there. Crystals, feathers. A lock of hair tied with a ribbon. A plastic square marked with embossed numbers and signed in somebody's hand. A strange, needled plant, small and sad looking.

As Arthur's finger brushes over the plant, it catches at him, snagging a drop of blood from his skin. “What the...?” He puts his finger in his mouth and frowns at Ginger, who looks torn between amusement and mortification.

< Sorry! Mum's cactus. It's... > It's her mother's; even if it's hideous. Well, maybe not every woman could leave her motherless children rings of precious metal like Arthur’s mother could.

Arthur looks at the plant with renewed interest. He's never seen anything like it before. < What type? >

But her explanation makes no sense.

The plant looks... wrong. For more than the strange thorns that it carries. It feels shrunken and dry. Dead as the family Ginger grieves.

Ginger takes it from him, and puts it back down. < I can't garden. > Which makes no sense. Because < garden > is the name for the formally planted region of land immediately adjacent to a dwelling place. It describes closely shorn grass and flowers and carefully placed stone pathways. How can a woman fail to be a stretch of grass?

When will _any_ of the words that he’s hearing start to make sense?

< I'm a bad witch. >

Is < witch > another name for daughter? Or child? Either way, her grief is sincere. < You are good witch. Cactus ok. > Even if it appears anything but.

Ginger smiles and, if it’s based more on mockery of him than easing of her pain, at least it’s honest. < Liar, liar, pants on fire. >

< You are strange. > Arthur has spent enough time in the future to know that he’s now strange; he’s spent enough time with Ginger to begin to suspect that she is too.

Indeed, she laughs at his insult. Playfully slaps at his arm. And the gesture is so painfully one that _he_ could have made, if only Merlin where here, that Arthur’s eyes start to sting.

When his vision steadies, Ginger is talking once more. She’s gesturing distractedly towards her bed and, even with what he knows of her romantic inclinations, only the fact that her chair is so obviously otherwise preoccupied, makes him trust her when she says, < sit, sit >, as though her bed were the most natural place in the world to offer a strange man in her chambers.

< Watch. >

She brings out the bowl of water, brimming near over once more, though this time with water both pure and fresh. Arthur looks at it curiously, wondering what she means to do with that water.

She puts it down in the midst of her alter, and carefully arranges her familial tokens around that bowl. < For remembering. >

She picks up a knife.

It's a small enough thing. A blade barely useful for paring up an apple, though there's no apple in sight here.

And then Ginger rolls up her sleeve, exposing a wrist scabbed and scarred and-

Arthur stands. Takes a step back. Ginger, startled, dropped both her sleeve and knife-arm. < Arthur, are … ? > Her face is perfect, gentle concern.

< Sorry. Two minutes. > That's the right excuse, isn't it?

He turns and retreats to his room.

Tells himself he mustn’t run.

*

Magic. Here? Now?

Arthur strides through the corridors, determined. Thoughts of Sal and his ladies; of the rules of the house… they all seem very far away.

There’s a sorceress in the hall.

A < witch >. She’d even told him her nature; given her the modern name with which to condemn her.

In his room, Arthur scrambles for the hospital bag, hauling it out from under his bed in a frantic burst of energy. Will Ginger stay where he’s left her? Or will she wreak some great work of harm while his back is turned? How much time does he have?

Why in all the seasons of life did a _sorceress_ invite _him_ to study her night-time castings?

Mail, cold and familiar, shifts under his fingers. Fabric bunches and unfurls as Arthur hastily pulls it free. There’s a clatter from his plate as it tumbles from the cloak’s deep, red folds and-

But, of course, Excalibur isn’t there.

Arthur’s repacking (badly; quickly) when the scrap of fabric tumbles lose. As it falls, his eyes track its path; startled motionless.

Then he kneels; picking the small favour up. It’s rumbled; for Arthur’s usually crushed the delicate handkerchief under his surcoat before battle; the better to protect Gwen’s neat embroidery from the grime of the field.

Ghosting his fingers over the stitches, Arthur is lost. He can almost _see_ her precise needlework as she’d sat by the fire, listening to him talking thorough his papers of state; and all the while she’d been making this token for him. Something to remember her by when he was far away.

He’d not even noticed _what_ she was crafting until, completed, she’d presented it to him.

Mist fills Arthur’s eyes. In vain he tries to blink them clear. For Gwen has never been further from him than she is now. At length, he surrenders to the pain; raising the cloth to his face to hide the evidence.

The handkerchief dries the saltwater it finds on his face well enough, but for all that the soft touch of the fabric is well familiar, the scent of Camelot and his wife’s perfumes is long since lost.

It bodes ill.

But still, it is _something_.

Arthur presses the cloth under the collar of his shirt and up against his shoulder.

Then he goes to the wardrobe. Reaches up.

*

It's overkill to visit a lady wearing a sword, and underkill to visit a witch with one. But compromise is an inexact art at best.

He marches back to Ginger's room, all the while expecting (hoping?) to be interrupted by Sal and banished from his hall.

Ginger had seemed so _nice_.

Maybe she is: the voice in Arthur's head sounds strangely like Merlin's.

This time, when Arthur opens the door, he doesn't knock.

Ginger looks over. < You're back. > She sounds pleased.

Her eyes skim along the length of him, doubtless taking in the sheathed sword at his hip. And, though her eyebrows rise, evidently surprised, there's less fear on her face than delight. < Ok. That's cool. >

The room is not cool, though Arthur's skin certainly feels that way. It's the chill of forced decision.

He walks over to Ginger, with her desk lit by little sparking lights. They're colourful and beautiful and absolutely nothing like honest candle light. It's electricity, he tells himself. It's everywhere now.

Between those lights there is a lace-worked cloth covered with stones and leaves and feathers and _memories_. And, those alone, though suspicious; they're not enough to condemn a woman over.

But the sigils now smeared in blood around the bowl of water?

That's witchcraft.

*

Later, Arthur sits on the end of Ginger's bed, looking down at her, on the floor, and wonders what to do next.

Outside, the moon is high and full. The window she had cracked open lets in the scents and sounds of the garden.

The obvious answer is that he should leave. For a hall that would allow witchcraft, no matter how petty, is no place for him.

Instead he looks down at Ginger's wide, open eyes and sighs. Makes his hand loosen its grip on the hilt of his blade. Throughout the long minutes of her < spell >, whatever its purpose and whatever it is that she felt that it did… Not once had those eyes had ever glimmered golden.

< Arthur? > She sounds worried. < Are you ok? >

 _No,_ he thinks, somewhat hysterically. _I'm not alright. I'm a reincarnated dead king who's waged a lifelong battle against the corruption of magic, and now that I'm free of it, I don't know whether to laugh or to weep._

Because, somewhere deep down, he'd wanted _so much_ to believe that she could do it. That she was a sorceress. That, somewhere in this strange and artificial world, there could be glimmers (or even shadows) of the life that he once knew so well.

But she's no more a witch than the farmers' boys with their muddy sticks are knights of Camelot.

Worse still, Arthur doesn't know whether, if her eyes had glowed, he'd have chosen to spare her or kill her.


	17. Part 2, Chapter 6:  Reflections

There are a great many things that, over the years, Arthur has learned he does not like seeing during his breakfast. Merlin kicking over his chamber pot is actually fairly low down the list of offences. Though that’s more a reflection of the nature of some of the messages Arthur has received in the early hours.

Seeing Ginger after 'the night before' falls rather higher on Arthur’s list.

Thankfully, he doesn’t see her until after lunch. He’s stopped running through his outdoor drills in favour of stretching his nearly fully healed leg when she runs out of the building, shrieking.

As with so many truths around Ginger, what should sound negative appears not to be.

< Helen! Maeve! Helen! Maeve! >

The two women, seated close by on a small bench, look over. Gods! _Everyone_ looks over, Arthur included.

As he looks, he makes eye contact.

Ginger’s mad dash towards the bench suddenly falters, then shifts in his direction. < Arthur! >

He’s far from certain that he likes being the object of her attention.

But then she is there, in front of him, brandishing her cactus, face alight with such pure joy that it takes Arthur a moment to focus on the monstrosity in its pot. Ginger’s babbling away, spilling out words like < spell > and < miracle > and, strangest of all, < thank you, Arthur! >, but all he can determine is that, in amongst all the thorns, there’s a tiny, bright pink bud.

“How strange. I thought it was dead.”

Before he can get much further, he’s attacked; strong arms closing around his neck. Arthur’s never been ambushed by a sorceress in such away before, but he’s fairly certain that ‘menaced by plant’ should not be allowed.

Thankfully it’s quickly over, with Ginger rushing to settle besides Helen and Maeve, cactus held proudly for all to see. Maeve kisses her temples. Helen pulls her into a tender embrace.

It rather answers any lingering questions Arthur may have held about the mutuality of their shared affections.

Maeve, catching Arthur looking, scowls and makes a pointed hand gesture; one that doesn’t have to be known to be understood. Arthur averts his face to give them their privacy. Starts to stretch out his leg again and check the motion of it.

Morgana, he thinks, would have liked the future. Would have liked these angry girls with their strength and their independent freedom.

How had it ever gotten so bad between them?

Certainly, as Uther’s daughter – even an unacknowledged one – she would have married well. Could have been queen to a distant land.

But then, that was the root of their contention. That Morgana didn’t _want_ to be queen to a distant land. She wanted her _home_ ; felt it her birthright. And she didn’t want to play Gwen to some other Arthur, but rather to be Arthur himself. To be ruler and high priestess and ultimate power of her own realm.

It’s a craving that Arthur finds all too easy to understand.

Whereas sweet, solemn Gwen…

Yet, by his death, Arthur _had_ left Gwen in just such a situation as Morgana had desired: the sole holder of the throne of Camelot.

Had she held it? (It doesn’t even cross Arthur’s mind to wonder if she held it _well_ ; if Gwen had ruled, then Camelot would be her sincerest priority.) Had his council and his knights knelt to her, as he would have wished; following their queen, not as regent to some young heir, but as their liege in her own right?

Had she been well? Alone, and with the weight of the crown upon her?

Had she remarried; perhaps bearing children of her own?

(Had she been loved?)

< Are you okay? >

It is, strangely, Maeve of the bitter-scorn who seems to have picked up on Arthur’s changed mood.

What is he meant to say? < My wife is dead. >

The three women exchange unreadable glances. What Arthur _expects_ is for them to start rambling about his ‘returning’ memory. That, or to bombard him with associated questions.

Instead, Ginger abandons her cactus to Helen, rises, and pulls Arthur into a gentle hug.

*

It’s late at night when Arthur’s startled by a knock at his door.

He’d been intending to sleep, truly he had, but when he sleeps he dreams.

Opening the door, he’s expecting to see Sal. While he’s not certain what possible purpose could summon the other man here at this time, it _is_ his hall.

In hindsight, Arthur should have known enough to suspect that any night-time visitor would be Ginger; happily disregarding the rules of the hall. She’s wearing a long, fluffy robe and is holding several items in her hands.

< Hi, Arthur. Here, > she hands him a few of them.

Upon close inspection, it appears that he now holds a collection of thick, blank papers, bound at the top with twisted wire, and a tin containing pencils of various shades. Arthur turns the pages carefully and decides that she must mean them for official correspondence; certainly the parchment is of better quality than any he’s yet seen.

Arthur has no one to write to.

< Thank you. >

< It’s for … > And Ginger holds up another bound set of papers; this one well thumbed. When she opens it, Arthur is struck by the detail and vibrancy of her creations before realising that, forget it being an illuminated manuscript, there is no text at all. Apparently Ginger has been making her own comic or picture book.

Arthur’s beginning to wonder why anyone in this world learns lettering, when they’re all so clearly interested only in illustrations.

< Arthur. Um. I- > For once it’s not Arthur’s understanding that cuts meaning from their conversation. Rather, it’s an unusual hesitance in Ginger. < I was … your wife … and … good? >

*

Days pass – maybe ten or so of them. Arthur should really start to keep count. But little of interest occurs in that time. Mainly he survives.

He does not draw.

Laundry; toast making; tea-duty. He polishes his armour and _attempts_ to practice in the garden. He studies his maps, and works on his English. None of it is hard, exactly, just slow.

And lonely.

For it’s not the repetitive or dull nature of the work which grinds Arthur down – in many ways it’s no more numbing than a whole day’s attendance by his chattering councillors, and certainly far less rests upon his successful completion of such tasks – but rather the lack of…

(But Arthur is careful to shut these thoughts down. Has grieved enough lost companions to fear the abyss surely formed by losing _all_ whom he knows. Knows he cannot let himself fall into that; not when it is so far beyond his ability to change. So he doesn’t linger on recollections of Gwen’s warm and certain guidance, nor Merlin’s infectious talent for drawing him back into the moment. Doesn’t think of how, if only he were here, Leon would watch, bewildered, as Arthur makes toast, nor how Morgana would be fascinated by the commonplace habit of women striding out in their britches.)

What he _can’t_ help but wonder, is how things could have been if he and Gwen and Lancelot had lived with such freedom. If he’d have been strong enough – self-assured enough – to share Gwen’s affections with his knight; the better to let his beloved have all that she wanted and to cut short that heartbreak. For Gwen’s heart is an old uncertainty; one that Arthur can muse over from a certain distance. Alas, the balance of their romance is one that he already knows the answer to.

For, no matter how he tries to imagine arranging their lives, the key point remains that, with Gwen’s dark beauty, any child Arthur sired would be unlikely to bear the hue of either his hair or his eyes. That, thus, any assignation with Lancelot would, as a matter of course, ensure doubt lingered as to Arthur’s heir’s parentage. And _that_ , in turn, would place the throne’s succession in uncertainty.

Quite simply, any child of Gwen’s _must_ be irrefutably Arthur’s or risk throwing the kingdom into just such a war as he and Morgana had waged.

He wonders if, in this distant future, they’ve found a method of succession which holds less bloodshed. It’s bitter to imagine the peaceful plenty around him ground down to dust and loss.

*

The next morning, Officer MacAdam returns bearing a paper and, disappointingly, a request for blood. Again.

Arthur simply leaves the room; he’s fairly certain that Sal will prevent the woman from following him. But it’s an incident that gnaws away at him, like a rat with a boot, putting holes into his sense of peace.

Arthur fidgets with the paper, looking at the words and the scratchy charts and then makes up his mind.

< Ginger. > He’s been avoiding her as much as he can since the nights of the not-spell and the drawing-gift. Doesn’t know if he deserves the welcoming smile that she offers him now. < I need help. >

And there he hesitates. But the truth is that he _does_ need help. And so he holds out the paper to her. < What is? >

< It’s hair analysis. >

Her follow-on explanation is long and slow, but the gist of it appears to be that the modern world has advanced a form of divination based on studying hair. It’s a process that, to hear Ginger tell of it, provides a certain amount of information about one’s home location, and yet remains (unsurprisingly from what Arthur knows of visions) mockingly vague.

< Why bother? >

< If you are British, then … >

Apparently it’s a proxy for citizenship. Arthur had thought the ruler had granted him the freedom of the city with his Emergency Documentation. Evidently not. Or only partially. Ginger is vague and the future is, apparently, complicated.

But, if modern people can learn _something_ from hair then the Officer’s other request begins to make more sense. For how much more accurate must a science-spell be once cast with blood?

He tries to get confirmation from Ginger. < The blood? Like hair? >

< For dee-en-ay. > She holds out her hand. < Your tablet, please. >

After offering her his hair analysis paper, the tablet is insignificant enough. Though Ginger’s eyebrows rise when she sees the webpages he has loaded; that Arthur’s still looking through the comics that she’d left him (or, rather, the ones that he’d found linked to the ones that she left him). Under her surprise, he thinks that she looks pleased.

She takes her time with the tablet. As her previous contributions have been helpful (Arthur has learned about, among other things, < Marriage Equality >; < surrogacy >; < the Health and Safety Executive >; and < the Troubles >), Arthur is willing to wait.

The video, when Ginger finds it, is not helpful.

In the moving pictures, there is blood, then there is a blue fluid, then there are several little rows of lines looking somewhat like the stripes along caterpillars if only one wanted to line up a collection of stripped caterpillars. Some of the caterpillar stripes are circled in red. Then a man and a woman (with prominent wedding rings) hug a much younger woman and everyone starts to cry. Arthur thinks that they are meant to look happy.

It makes absolutely no sense.

< Um. Thanks. >

Ginger accepts his gratitude with a look of judgement worthy of Gaius. < Did you understand? >

< No. > There seems little point in pretending otherwise.

She launches into further explanation which continues to make no sense, based as it is in a whole host of words that Arthur has no knowledge of. < War >, < refugee >, < identification >, < adopted >… Every time that Arthur thinks he’s making headway with his comprehension, he’s shown _once again_ just how limited his English vocabulary is.

Landry, toaster, over-stewed: he’s learning words fit only for servitude.

(And, under that self-scorn, a small ray of relief. For, if at least he is _learning_ something, then surely he’s intended to have an end to his state of dependency? Is intended to regain some degree of self-determination, even if it is to be sufficient only to enter into a state of serfdom?)

(Ginger’s comics have touched upon < coercion > and < consent >; Arthur’s not certain how his current state of reliance, or his future, relate to those.)

< She wants … where you … MacAdam is … >

Arthur sighs. For if this subject is as incomprehensible to him, as the issues of warring states and sweeping famines had been to the poor villagers that once came begging to Camelot’s keep, then he, like those villagers, must bow down to the knowledge and wisdom of one better versed in matters of import.

He looks at Ginger - a woman covered in scars, many of them of her own making - and tries to decide if her judgement can be considered sound.

Takes a leap of faith.

< So. I should. > He makes a flickering gesture, mimicking the spurting of an arterial bleed from his elbow. < Blood? >

< Well, Arthur … >

He holds up his hand, stopping yet another attempt at an explanation he’s already accepted is currently beyond him. < Yes? Or no? >

Ginger chews her lip, face struck grave as if realising the extent of his reliance on her. She looks back at the paper that he’s held out. Opens her mouth as if to say one thing, then closes it again. Appears deep in thought.

When she looks at him once more, her face is certain. < Yes. >

*

The decision made, it’s only a matter of informing Officer MacAdam. Arthur had expected Ginger to refer the matter to Sal, but instead she takes out a battered phone and has Arthur fetch the officer’s numbers. They call together; Ginger handling most of the conversation, although apparently Arthur must speak in confirmation at various points (and despite the fact that he does not, in fact, understand what he is committing himself to).

He tells himself that, witch or not, lady of honour of not, Ginger has been kind to him. Has shown herself to be focussed on ensuring his comfort and his integration into her society.

Nonetheless, the whole topic leaves Arthur feeling… adrift.

After their call is concluded, he wanders out into the garden, the better to feel the breeze on his face and to hear the leaves’ whispering.

But this garden is no forest. It has no space for hunting (nor freedom from prying eyes). Here, all the trees are small and young; their straight trunks so slender that Arthur could easily reach around them and have his fingertips touch together. Such trees hold little of the age and majesty of the endless wild woods he once navigated.

It’s an analogy which could easily apply to all other areas of his life.

Behind him, he hears the hall’s garden doors open. Looks over to see who else has decided to take in the air and it’s facade of freedom. It’s Ginger.

He actually expects her to walk over to him. (Which is hubris, certainly in this day and age.) Instead she heads to a rickety old structure against the side of the hall. Personally, Arthur thinks it looks like a sheep shed, except even more badly constructed. There’s a loud clanging from within and, when Ginger backs out, she’s pulling at a strange contraption.

< Arthur. > Her grin is brilliant; Arthur has the dreadful feeling that he’s going to end up the butt of some joke. < This is a bike. >

*

Everything changes the next time Mister Paterson visits.

He does so only the day after Officer MacAdam returns; Ekpe sitting in on their meeting to help draw the blood she needs for her strange tests. It was less blood than Arthur had expected, but the method of extraction – a hollow needle – seemed dangerously… open to abuses.

He wonders if the two visits are linked.

Mister Paterson is friendly when Arthur walks into Sal’s office, but he talks too quickly for Arthur to follow, as though there is a great deal of information that he has to get through. Some of what he has to get through is, apparently, handing Arthur a sheaf of papers with badly mixed ink. For, though the black and white of the lettering appears dried, when Arthur handles it, the dye smears across his fingertips.

< Thank you. > He says. Then, < Why? >

There’s an explanation which seems to long, but Sal is wringing his hands as Mister Paterson speaks and so the small fragments of meaning Arthur catches start to make sense. There’s the name of a different area of the city. A reference to space. Something about healing well.

Arthur’s being moved on again.

< I understand. > He looks at the pages he’s been given. There’s more text than there had been on Officer MacAdam’s report, but also more pictures. They show a building. One much bigger than Sal’s hall. There are images of the internal rooms; they look more like barracks rather than this pampered household.

Maybe it _is_ a barracks. Maybe they’ve seen some potential in him, and wish to refer him to a guard unit or the army.

But he hasn’t the words to ask. < When? >

And Mister Paterson breaks his verbose habit; replying with a single word. < Tomorrow. >

*

That night, at dinner, Sal serves Arthur wine. It’s a single, small glass, but the taste is smooth and rich.

The next morning more people gather to see Arthur off than he’s expecting. Timothy looks near to tears, while Ginger amongst her ladies is strangely wan. She waves Arthur over and hands him a small red box, hardly larger than the book Melanie gifted him with, which has the cold touch of metal. It has a lock-and-key device worked in miniature on the front. < … a lockbox. For … > And she shows him how to open it with a tiny key.

< Thank you. > He has nothing to gift her in return. Maybe that’s not expected in this time. For, before he can step back, Maeve also stops him to pass over a purple and pink phone. It’s old; more worn and heavily handled than the tablet Gerald left Arthur. Why do people keep helping him?

< There’s ten … on it, > she shrugs. < Also our numbers. >

He hadn’t thought Maeve had liked him enough to put herself out. < Thank you. >

< Don’t thank her, > Ginger says, cryptically, before pulling Arthur into a quick hug. < Just message us, okay? You do understand ‘message’, right? >

Arthur doesn’t, but he’s certain he’ll figure it out. < Yes. >

And then it’s over.

Arthur leaves.

Again.


	18. Interlude: Elfrida

It’s been six weeks: forty two days with no news. Now, on the brief occasions when they meet, the police liaison officer’s eyes are filled with messages Elfrida doesn’t waste her energy interpreting.

Work is a curse and a blessed relief, both. It gets in the way of her search, but, in getting in the way, it forces Elfrida’s mind out of the ruts and tunnels she’s driving herself into.

Indeed, it’s as she’s on hold, for the third time that day, to Devon in the sales team (King of Unrealistic Product Modifications), that it occurs to Elfrida that one of her dead ends, at least, might not be quite so dead after all. Because, while working through the somewhat bitty contact information she has for Mari’s friends, one number had singularly failed to connect.

Elfrida _had_ assumed the number no longer valid. But maybe there’s a more basic explanation.

Analise, after all, has always been a bit of a technophobe.

Elfrida doesn’t wait for work to end; doesn’t try to reach Devon any longer. At eleven thirty in the morning, Elfrida the Somewhat Too Dedicated walks out of the offices and gets into her sun-seared car. If she’d looked back, she might have seen a few raised eyebrows. Then again, she might not have. One of the perks of being known to be diligent, lies in people attributing miscommunication or prior-permission to actions for which others would receive only reprimand.

It’s two hours to what Mari has always named Analise’s ‘Oops I Wanted a Bookshop’ café. Elfrida makes it in one hour fifty, then nearly ruins her parallel parking wondering if she’s been picked up on the speed cameras.

Walking through the café’s door, chimes ringing discordantly, Elfrida is engulfed, not in unbearable heat or steam, but rather the scent of cinnamon and coffee and rosehips, all carried along on the blissful cool inherent to old, stone walls.

It’s late lunch, and the space within is packed. Chatter and the clatter of crockery set Elfrida’s teeth on edge. She tries to remind herself that, just because her world is falling apart, it doesn’t mean that everyone else’s must as well.

Around the cluttered tables are dotted various bookshelves (less every time Elfrida comes). Crime novels, gardening books, a disproportionate amount on crystals and herbcraft and spirituality…

_New Age_ , that last section is labelled. Odd. That’s a phrase Analise has always despised.

By the till there’s the usual twinned display cases. One filled with cakes and paninis, the other with rose quartz and malachite. Also with structures of suggestive (but not quite lewd) outline. Elfrida has come to understands (but never dared confirm) that it’s financial necessity which drives the ever expanding collection of teas served in the ‘Bookshop’, while also culling shelf space in favour of seating.

Mari is the one who’d voiced sympathy to her friend’s various business disappointment, not Elfrida.

But then, the two of them had once been best friends.

It had raised more than one snide comment back in the day. Even at their engagement party, Elfrida can remember Steff coming over, looking for the bottle opener and also some gossip. Recalls the way he’d lent in close and directed her gaze with insinuation towards the smart new sofa Elfrida had bought only days before.

Elfrida had looked. She’d followed Steff’s gesture over to Mariko and Analise, sitting there together on the sofa, and been able to see only a reflection of a her own mother and her aunt. Close? Yes. Intimate? Yes. But a threat to Elfrida's future marriage? Never.

(A few years later she'd come across someone on an internet messaging board who'd floated the idea that, when people accuse others of cheating, it's because they assume that everyone's like them. It seemed – still does, for that matter – rather reductive, and yet it left her wondering.)

In short, the only person Elfrida’d been left doubting that day was Steff.

There’s a sudden tinkling of the bead curtain leading to the back and, just like that, Elfrida finds herself in the company of Analise, Mari's not-blood-sister, and realises that she doesn't know quite what to ask.

Then she actually _looks_ at Analise. One glance at her expression lets Elfrida know, with an certainty of insight rare to her, that it’s not a failed charger or a forgetful manner that has had the other woman missing all her calls.

The moment stretches.

Then breaks.

“You should probably come in.” By which Analise means ‘further in’, holding aside trailing strands of her bead curtain. “Annie!” This to the harassed looking woman at the counter. “I’m going to be a little while longer. Sorry, pet.”

Elfrida follows her behind the curtain and-

“That’s a lot of Ikea.”

Analise stops, glances around herself, nose briefly scrunched up as though smelling something bad. When she speaks it’s like she’s trying to convey more than she does, “Yes.”

It’s such a brief answer that Elfrida can’t bring herself to ask more. To say, ‘Where are your dream-catchers and hangings and incense stands?’ or ‘What happened to all the old wood antiques that you liked so much?’ Even beneath their feet, the rugs have been lifted and a bland, hardwearing, beige carpet laid.

It feels like Analise is trying to be more Elfrida than Elfrida is herself.

“Coffee?” Analise offers, although she’s already moving to make Elfrida tea.

Her hands are shaking, Elfrida notices, her worry creeping up a notch. She looks around the room, searching out other clues, but there’s _nothing there_ to give her any.

Even the usual mishmash of photos splayed about the place have been culled with brutal efficiency.

The photo from their wedding day is gone. But not, oddly, the painfully formal one from Elfrida’s first workplace Christmas party. She hadn’t even realised that Analise had a copy, and yet there it is. Elfrida in a red silk blouse and Mari standing next to her in a frumpy black cocktail dress that she’d borrowed from a friend of a friend because she hadn’t wanted to show Elfrida up.

(She could never have shown Elfrida up, not even if she’d arrived sky-clad and wrapped in ribbons. Why had Elfrida never _said_ that?)

Elfrida _wants_ to ask about Mariko. Yet, instead, the words that she says are broader than that, “What’s going on?”

At the sink, Analise stills. Sets down the teaspoon she’s been using with a single careful click. Places her hands on the counter edge like a woman on a wild ferry crossing might lean against the railings.

“Analise?”

“They’ve been going missing.”

_They?_

“Mari?”

Analise laughs, but her wavering reflection in the window looks more wrong than mere distortions in the glass can account for. “Many, many more than Mari.”

And Elfrida’s mind just clicks over; hears that there’s a pattern and starts looking for the numbers. “How many? Who? When?”

At least it has Analise turning back to her, if only to make hushing motions with her hands. Her face is drawn, her eyes wide. She looks scared. And yet…

“You _know_ something.” Elfrida should be angry. Or betrayed. But those emotions don’t seem very relevant to the moment. She wonders if it’s because – looking as the woman does – she’s _sorry_ for Analise; can see that this is haunting her?

But that’s all background static to the things she needs to know. “ _Tell_ me.”

“It started...” Analise hesitates, eyes darting around the room, then jumping back to Elfrida. “Well, there have always been rumours.”

‘Always’ seems awfully specific. “Rumours of what?”

Analise seems not to hear. “But it was the solstice when it first became… real. Happened to people _I_ know.” She looks away; frowning at the discarded teaspoon. “Before that it always seemed so farfetched.”

None of which is telling Elfrida _anything_.

“Who was saying these things, Analise? Who are they and why have they taken Mari?” She’ll worry about the other people later; doesn’t have the bandwidth to focus on more right now.

_Just please let Mari be alright!_

“I wasn’t involved.” A gasping laugh. “Don’t have the _time_ that Mari does anymore. I’ve got a…” her hands make a gesture all about; to her house and home and business. “It’s falling apart and so I… But Mari went and was…”

“But… Why?” Why then? Why Mari? Why take people away at all?

“We met these people.” And it’s such a dreadful thing to say; a phrase so loaded with foreboding by a hundred thousand film and TV and radio dramas that Elfrida’s mind goes to drugs, prostitution, gambling, slavery, cartels-

“They had power.”

Just like that, her thoughts slam to a halt. Because when Analise says ‘power’…

“You don’t mean influence with the police or anything, do you?” But Elfrida doesn’t need to see Analise shaking her head to know that what _she_ means is- “None of that is _real_. You know that, right?” She should be gentler. She _knows_ how Mari and Analise and their little group _are_ about things like that. It’s not like everyone doesn’t have their little particularities – Elfrida’s not that much of a hypocrite! But magic?

“Look,” Analise cuts her off. “You know what I think, and I know what you think. But these people. They had…” She shakes her head again, but Elfrida doesn’t know whether that’s in negation or confusion or for some other communication purpose. “If you saw what they could do, then you’d believe, too.”

_This doesn’t matter._ It’s a small voice at the back of Elfrida’s mind, but she makes herself listen to it. Because it's right, in that magic and related phenomena are not topics either woman will convince the other of and, most importantly, it’s really not relevant now. What matters _now_ is that-

“So the people that Mari went to this festival with; they’ve all vanished?” Analise nods. Elfrida looks around the gutted-and-reformed kitchen-living area. “And the people who did this-” And what does she even mean by ‘this’? Is Mari kidnapped? Murdered? Being held and tormented and- “The people who did this are threatening you?”

Analise shakes her head, fast and uncoordinated. “They don’t know about me.” She sounds like she wants to believe that.

“Has there been a ransom? Some sort of-”

“No!” And like that Analise’s hands are around Elfrida’s; a grip that is too tight. “No, Elfrida. If I thought there was anything… I’d have told you. I swear I’d have told you if there was anything we could do! But these people – these _others_ \- they make people like us just _vanish_ ; disappear and never be heard from again and-”

Elfrida stops listening. Tries to think through what Analise has already implied. That Mari got involved in a rough crowd who had some sort of… feud going on with another group. A bunch of people all (or at least some) of whom are interested in magic or faith-miracles... Some sort of cult, maybe?

It hits her then, that when she finds her wife, it’s most likely to be as bones and torn fabric in the bottom of a ditch.

She looks at Analise; at the shimmering tears that the other woman is fighting not to lose…

Analise, who has always been so fierce and scornful of those less sure than she…

…and knows that, dead or not, she’s not going to stop looking for Mari.

That now she _finally_ has somewhere to start. “Put me in touch with the people Mari was talking to, Analise.” Because, if it’s some sort of gang warfare or doomsday cult thing, then they can’t _all_ be dead, can they?

Analise falls silent, face almost frozen mid-word. “Analise,” Elfrida makes her voice very certain, “You put me in contact with those people right now.”

“It will take me time.”

Time? This has already taken time.

“I’ll wait.” What else is she meant to say?

“They’re suspicious. Will want to check up on you and-”

“Fine. Whatever’s needed.”

Analise nods, the movement jerky. “Okay. Okay, then. I’ll try to… It might be… I mean, I… I _will_ contact them.”

And that, apparently, is as much as Elfrida will get from Analise. It's more than she’s received in weeks, so why does everything feel more futile than ever?

As Elfrida walks back to her car, she glances in the café’s window. One of Analise’s prized ritual bronzes is there, marked as ‘for sale’, even if it is at an offputtingly high price. Elfrida forces her chin up as she passes it. Tells herself she won’t left her life be ruined, not just like this, and not without putting up a fight.


	19. Interlude:  Merlin

After Arthur died (not _long_ after Arthur died, though it had certainly felt like that at the time; just a century or so; just the rise and fall of a generation or two) Merlin had been haunting Avalon.

Avalon hadn’t been… what it was to become later.

_Then_ , the forest had still crept up to the shore; low branches seeming almost to gaze down into the waters as if admiring the distortions of their otherworldly reflections. And Merlin had his hut; his vigil; and his little hoard of what-nots sent to him by a queen who had remembered a friendship stitched together when she was much lesser than she afterwards became.

He’d had Freya’s uncertain words of sympathy, and other occasional visitors. (Leon had been the last friendly face Merlin had seen from Camelot, and their previous meeting had been… long before that day.) He’d had his memories and his regrets.

Looking back, Merlin’s not entirely certain he still had his wits.

An old woman had come to him. Eawynn, he thinks her name might have been. Eawynn of… somewhere. A farm more important than many, but not important enough to make her a lady nor her son a lord.

For, more truly, it was the son who came to Merlin; his mother being borne upon a litter carried with care between a brace of strong-boned fieldhands.

She’d had a stroke, though that’s not what they called it back then. Apoplexy: that had been the word.

Merlin can’t be sure of her name, much less the place that she came from, but he remembers the look of her. Half living, half dead: a split down the middle.

Her son wanted her cured and said he had coin.

He’d also had a sword; one both Merlin and he knew was intended to be as much a motivator as the gold he offered. Yet it wasn’t that sword – no, nor the coin – that moved Merlin to intercede. Rather it was the shattered look and broken, slurred confusion of a woman who’d just lost half her soul, or so it seemed.

For Merlin knew how that felt: losing half of one’s self.

His ‘skill’ for healing… Well, it’s fair to say that it’s a magic he’s gained skill and control in with the passage of time, though that was starting from a low place indeed. And, in those days, with the fields of physiology and dissection and pathology still centuries in the future…

Merlin did what he could.

He reached out, into the flickering pathways of her brain and found the damage well enough. A blood vessel, thinned and split; local pressure; death centred on just one area of a vital organ.

He’d fixed what he ‘saw’ and yet-

She’d been smiling at Merlin when, blinking, he’d sat back and looked upon her. That he remembers. She’d had a lovely smile; slightly uneven, though whether from roguish good-humour or some slight lingering over-compensation, he couldn’t be sure. Besides them, her son was on his knees, tears streaming down his face as gold was gushing from his purse.

The sword; forgotten.

Merlin had had to take her hands. He thought he’d been taking her hope.

Because the vessels in her mind, they were all of them aged and worn through. He’d patched and he’d reinforced and yet… It had only been chance that one part and not another had gone when it did, stilling that half of her. In time, similar would happen again. And again. Large or small, she’d lose bits and pieces of herself with a certainty Merlin couldn’t hold back.

(And, somewhere inside, he’d _hoped_. For perhaps Kilgharrah was wrong? Maybe Arthur’s death, which sank their shared destiny, was sign of a similar decay for Merlin? Perhaps, even in that very moment, a weakening was flowering within him such that it was only a matter of time before he, too, followed his king, unable to live without him? Perhaps Merlin could have an end in sight? A chance to rest; to lay down his shame and his loneliness.)

With a grace Merlin’s never found within himself, the old woman had smiled. Thanked him for whatever extra time she would have. And told him it was simply her fate.

Dying of a stroke had not been her fate. Merlin had wanted _so much_ to explain that to her. But apparently there were grandchildren to return to and crops to harvest; they hadn’t stopped to linger. And so Merlin had watched the small group ride away, his words like ants, biting at his shut mouth.

For her fate _couldn't be_ to be paralysed and live a slow and stunted ending, any more than Merlin could accept it as his own. It was simply bitter misfortune; an act of time, overtaking their plans.

That had been the strongest lie Merlin told himself: that it had been time, not they themselves, that had destroyed what Camelot could be.

Strong it may have been; it’s a lie that hasn’t lasted the test of time.

*

Life after life; the world changed. Magic faded and kindness seemed to ebb with it, although maybe that was just time skinning the remnants of hope and naivety ever more brutally from Merlin’s eyes.

Murder. War. Torments of unimaginable scale and for utterly petty purpose. He saw them all. Every monster to breathe.

And Arthur did not come.

But Merlin clung to the truth that he would. One day he would. That, on that day, Arthur would set it all to rights; make everything have been worth it.

Merlin just had to wait.

*

Sometimes (rarely) he _didn't_ wait.

Sometimes Merlin raged. It was guilt, partly. That and a certain type of perspective borne out of loneliness.

They'd burned down the blessed groves. Desecrated the temples and halls and hopes of all who had come before them. And that should have been pure evil, save that _so often_ such acts were carried out from a place of simple ignorance.

Whenever Merlin heard of such a horror, it was inevitably too late. Signs and portents; they’d never really been his strength. As for more mundane messages? Too slow.

There’d been a queen of England once. A hope for continued peace and stability after the death of a sickly boy king. Even though it tore Merlin up, wondering whether perhaps he had misunderstood the nature of Arthur’s return (had focussed too much on the lake, too little on possible rebirth), he’d ached with need to see this gentle and learned lady, for surely she could only be Gwen, reincarnate?

But he’d been timid (as he had been too many times before). Fearing to make a spectacle of magic in a world still leery of it, Merlin had travelled by horse; racing through the country to London and-

She’d held the throne for only a fistful of days; the Lady Jane Grey. Even as Merlin entered the city, it was too late; forces had gathered across the political and physical landscape formed of blood and heritage and stifled religion.

That she hadn’t, in the end, appeared to be a return of Gwen was of only fleeting comfort. For, as a new queen took the throne, the persecutions mounted up. Again.

*

Naturally, Merlin’s mind finds plenty of regret. That, and self-recrimination. Because he'd been _meant_ to guide Arthur's rule. Had been the other half of his king’s puzzle.

And instead he'd hidden the best of himself away.

For what? Because he feared the pyre? (He's faced down more than a few since then.) Because he thought Arthur might not like the truth? (Well, he hadn't liked dying, either.) Because he'd become lost in protecting someone he loved more than life and magic and even himself?

Had lost sight of what mattered?

Still lacks in correct priorities, for that matter.

Sometimes Merlin wonders if his current situation is punishment for his hubris. For spending the years watching coming disasters with increasing excitement, more and more convinced that each one would herald the return of his king.

Of the man he missed (loved) more than any other.

*

Of course, in-between all of the death and destruction, it hadn’t all been bad. There'd been people just trying to live, hopeful and generous, sometimes even while hellfire and violence tore free all around them.

Merlin would like to pretend that he'd spent more of his life in those quiet pools of optimistic pleasantness, but that's not entirely true. More, he'd used them for recovery when he'd felt too worn and stretched thin.

But when he had, it had been spectacular. Almost uplifting.

There’d been the time that someone stumbled across giant bones, declaring them to be some form of prehistoric lizard. Merlin, fully expecting to see dragon remains, had boarded the stagecoach into the thriving chaos of the not-entirely-new city of Manchester, the better to see the touring spectacle.

What he saw wasn’t at all the danger to his secrets that Merlin had been expecting; indeed, it had merely been _charming_.

(Though he’s still not certain that they should have dressed it up in that waistcoat.)

For all that the newspapers had been filled with wide-spread concerns that such lizards would cause fine young ladies to faint, dinosaurs remain one of Merlin's favourites out of all humanity’s discoveries. There's something delightful in a creature so big and yet so apparently bumbling.

That they'd reminded him, just a little, of dragons hadn't hurt. But more than that was the fact that Arthur would have liked dinosaurs. Maybe. Or, at any rate, have liked hunting dinosaurs. Merlin _should_ judge him for that. Perhaps on some level he even does. But it's hard to hate a man who would ride out after a monster spreading death across his land with the same willing determination that he'd apply to hunting for his dinner.

So Merlin would pay his admission fare, find a corner, and sit and watch those bones. Imagine Arthur and his knights riding out after one. See, in his mind's eye, the shine of the armour on a crisp autumn's day and the steam rising from the horses’ breaths. Would look out over the remnants of a creature now long dead, and think and-

Occasionally the dinosaurs haunt Merlin’s dreams. Not because of their fearsome fangs, but for the foolish ways that they had been displayed. Sometimes he remembers the large museum in London. The men with their top hats and the ladies with their escorts. The desiccated body-parts from other places; linen bandage wrapped remnants; jars that had once been buried purposefully.

Imagines someone stumbling upon the grave of Camelot. Or, perhaps, one of those industrious gentlemen of business, putting in a plan to dredge the remnants of Avalon, sending Freya from her home and maybe…

He imagines looking at Arthur’s bones, draped over in badly fitting armour behind a jaunty sign making wildly foolish claims. Can almost _see_ society’s finest leaning forward with fleeting interest before giggling and moving on to the next curio.

This world! Often so little like the one that Merlin wishes it could become!

It’s not a wish he has any business making.

Because, while the planet has torn itself apart with human brutality, and magic seems to rot where it pools, what _exactly_ has he, Merlin, the most powerful warlock ever to walk the surface of the world been doing?

Waiting.

Watching.

Musing.

Worst of all, Merlin has hoped. _Hoped._ Has looked at the death and destruction around him and... waited with baited breath.

(Just when _did_ Arthur's return start being less about saving Albion - fulfilling his great destiny – and more about Merlin simply _seeing_ him once more?)

Doesn't that make Merlin the most depraved monster of all?

*

Monster or not, Merlin can't be kept here forever. It doesn't matter how strong the cell. If there’s one thing the centuries have taught him; it’s that even the most enduring of structures crumbles over time.

One thing Merlin has in plenitude is time.


	20. Part 3, Chapter 1:  Shelter

Given that the < Shelter > turns out to be a vast improvement on Sal’s Hall (at least in terms of sleeping), it’s embarrassing that Arthur immediately almost gets himself kicked out.

Oh, on the surface, the Shelter is a definite step down. Overcrowded, somewhat dingy, with the smell of too many people living in too small a place. Arthur will have to share a room with at least one, maybe at times two, other men.

Compared to the cursed silence of night times in Sal’s Hall, it promises to be wonderful.

Arriving with Mister Paterson, Arthur doesn’t know any of that yet. Rather as he is led up worn stone stairs, past a group of youths standing around, gossiping like idle stable-hands, Arthur tries to gauge everything taking place around himself. The doors – glass and steel combined in glorious proportions, ruined only by smeared grime and peeling paper notices – grate open when pushed hard against.

Beyond the doors, there’s a small antechamber. The wood and < carpet > of Sal’s Hall is replaced here by hard flooring, similar to that which Arthur has seen in kitchen and laundry areas with Timothy, but more heavily scuffed. There’s a clear track of ingrained wear leading from the main door, off to the right, where a further set of doors (also covered in tattered papers) stand closed.

Mister Paterson follows the less trodden route straight ahead to a broad half-wall that seems to do double duty as a desk. Behind the desk-wall a tired looking young woman is sitting. The whole setup reminds Arthur somewhat of the hospital. Only of meaner proportions.

While Mister Paterson deals with various papers (and there do always seem to be papers in the future), Arthur looks around. Someone has made a sincere effort to fill the wall space with colourful posters. But where such coverings in Ginger’s room had clearly been aesthetically chosen, the text on these images (and some of the slightly dubious images) imply that these may be intended to have a more informative purpose.

It’s colourful, but Arthur can’t help thinking that a nice plant, much like the ivy in the hospital, might have generated a more pleasant effect.

Just then a young man comes in from outside. He’s wearing stout ankle high boots and a worn blue shirt. Their eyes briefly meet, but the man doesn’t hold Arthur’s gaze; rather he continues over to the internal door where he presses his fingers with rapid purpose against a small metal box set into one side of the frame. The box makes a loud buzzing noise. He opens the door; walks through.

Arthur supposes that, at some point soon, he’ll do likewise.

When the forms are done, Mister Paterson shakes Arthur’s hand and leaves. Arthur watches him go, somewhat thrown at being so quickly deserted. It's a feeling that abates somewhat when the woman comes over. She does indeed show Arthur how to open the internal doors (with numbers!) before handing him a piece of paper with an internal floor plan and one room circled.

Watching her sit back down, face already turned to a large tablet-type structure in front of her, Arthur feels more than a little forgotten.

He puts that aside, focussing instead on finding his new room.

*

The first morning there, Arthur wakes slowly. He’s cold.

If he were outdoors, the thought crosses his mind, and it were this cold, then he’d be justified in having Merlin come and lie back to back with him.

Of course, if it were this cold and they were outside, then they’d usually have a fire going.

Pulling the room’s thin blanket over his shoulders, thoughts hazy and drifting, Arthur can almost smell pinecones and frost. He remembers sheltering in winter woods, hunted, unable to start a fire and enduring the long night hours, Merlin shivering against his back, as they both pretended to get more rest than they did.

He’d, once or twice over the years, considered rolling over, the better to pull Merlin’s warmth in close. But that would have been an unforgivably dishonourable way to act towards his servant.

Besides, Merlin was the one with no respect for social boundaries. And _he_ had never been the one to roll over. (Had never put Arthur in the position of having to speak harsh words about proper behaviour. What does it say, that Arthur’s never known whether to read Merlin’s manner as simple friendly disinterest, or a gentle type of gallantry?)

For the moment, Arthur lets himself linger on his fancy. Of being warm. On the idea of Merlin’s arm around him; Merlin’s nose pressed against the back of Arthur’s neck and his breath gusting at Arthur’s hair. Imagines covering Merlin’s fingers with his own gloved hands, the better to try to keep the man’s bare skin from the chill.

Arthur knows that he’s only thinking about this because he’s lonely and unsure (for he’s been lonely and unsure before). And that Merlin is…

(Merlin _was_ …)

It had felt safe, back then; being held by Merlin as he died. A good way to go; his last breaths drawing short and his moments stretched into eternity while all around him he could feel the support of the one person he’d dared hope would never hurt him.

This time, Merlin’s the one to be dead. There’s no recourse from Arthur’s loneliness.

Of course, he’s clearly never known Merlin _at all_. The man Arthur thought he knew maybe never truly existed, for there’s nothing either gallant or friendly in twisting someone up in falsehoods. Indeed everything – from Merlin’s first scornful words, to those last broken ones – could be nothing more than a fiction spun for a gullible, weak-willed man and-

Throwing back the blanket, Arthur sits up. It’s early, but summer light is streaming in through the window coverings; a strange arrangement of horizontal boards and strings which _does not work at all_.

Arthur cannot stay still any longer.

In the bed across from Arthur, the room’s other occupant, ‘Matt’ (no further details forthcoming from the taciturn man) snores softly. There’s a rattling from the pipes crossing below the window and, in the corridor outside, Arthur can already hear footsteps as people move about.

He’s not in Camelot, but he’s also no longer with the Sidhe.

It’s all going to be fine.

*

After finding the showers, Arthur takes a quick tour, using the previous day’s map and trying to match the symbols on it to the reality he’s confronted with.

There’s a common area with a TV and some desks; a laundry area, larger than Sal’s which makes sense with the numbers living here; and a few < kitchen corners >, which _don’t_ seem sufficiently larger, not for the numbers living here.

There are a lot of men. No women; no children. It does cross Arthur’s mind to wonder whether there’s been a war; if perhaps these are temporarily housed people fleeing from conflict. For many of them look haunted and haggard, and the clothes that they wear aren’t always ‘nice’.

Of course, if it’s a place of charity, then the men’s demeanour would also make sense. Clearly the liege of this hall is less generous than Sal. (Or perhaps more generous, and has helped out too many to do so to Sal’s standard.)

But there’s water, food and shelter. That’s a good starting point.

Returning to his room, Arthur finds Matt awake and mostly dressed.

< Thermostat’s broken. > The other man says.

Thermostat: yet another thing Arthur has no idea about.

< How do you- > Arthur starts, pulling his tablet towards himself. But Matt is gone before he can finish saying, _-spell that?_

Arthur closes down the search engine.

*

It very quickly becomes apparent that there’s less to do at the Shelter than there had been at Sal’s Hall. Even studying is harder.

The wi-fi, Arthur learns, only works well in the common area and the < reception >. The cluster of youths, standing with their devices on the steps just outside reception suddenly makes a lot more sense. Apparently they are < job > hunting. Arthur’s not certain what a job is, nor why it needs careful prior research on the internet, but as it seems to be a popular activity, then they are doubtless going about preparing for their expedition correctly.

On his second day, Arthur is introduced to Director O’Kelly and, that afternoon, Doc Emily. The former is clearly in charge, and their brief interaction must be a belated welcome-and-behave speech. The latter is a < resident counsellor > and makes more of an effort to ask questions at a level that Arthur can answer. Apparently he’s to meet with her every week.

Thus, also apparently, Arthur is expected to remain here for some time.

He returns to his room intending to fetch his maps to resume studying, but when he enters, he hesitates. Matt is gone. A young man with curly hair is unpacking instead.

*

The wi-fi works in the reception and common area, but the only sockets for charging are in the < residents’ > rooms. As such, Arthur finds himself alternating from one location to the next. This is not efficient.

Looking out of the window on his way back to the power sockets on his third morning, Arthur sees a large group of men assembled outside. They appear to be kicking a ball about. He tries to make sense of their activity but, although certain actions appear to repeat, cannot follow the larger picture.

None-the-less, when Arthur leaves his tablet and phone in his room, he heads downstairs and then out to the open expanse behind the Shelter. For maybe the task will make more sense from up close, or else someone will take pity on him and attempt to explain it to him.

He lingers long enough to struggled through a few rough greetings, then surrenders to the simple reality that his plan to involve himself won’t work. Not here, where everyone seems rushed and suspicious. So instead of joining in, he takes a few quick laps of the lawn, aiming to work up a sweat, even if that will just land him with further laundry.

At least when he returns to his room, Arthur’s pleasantly tired.

Dropping down onto his bed, he knocks at his phone and the scene lights up. There’s text across the front which had definitely not been there earlier in the day. It reads: _**Ginger:** How are you?_

Arthur frowns at the device for a moment, wondering how the words arrived. Is this the < message > Ginger spoke of?

Turning to his new < roommate >, Arthur asks, < How to phone-write? >

His new roommate puts earphones in and looks away.

*

After five days in his new room, Arthur’s already on his third roommate. The optimistic way of looking at these rapid changes is that Arthur is clearly not expected to be housed in the building forever. That said, it makes forming an acquaintance with anyone tricky, even ignoring the fact that Arthur’s most recent roommate, Evans (tall, abrupt and who spends a lot of time in fierce communication with the receptionist) hardly inspires Arthur to engage.

So it is that Arthur ignores Evans as best he can. It’s something he’s learning is expected in the Shelter and he heads out for a mid-day set of circuits without saying farewell.

When he comes back, Evans is going through his things.

< I mean… that, > Evans nods towards Arthur’s armour, tossed out across the floor, < is odd. But this- > He’s holding Excalibur.

Arthur doesn’t think or hesitate. He takes back what’s his.

*

For weeks now, it’s felt like Arthur’s been walking across a crumbling drawbridge. That, or maybe trying to feel his way across a wide river as thaw approaches.

All around him there have been things that he… just can’t think about. People he _mustn’t_ let himself miss. Frustrations that he has to bite down on, because he has _no time_ for them. Not if he wants to…

And he _doesn’t even know_ what he should be doing. How he’s meant to stop living on charity and depending on other people. When he’ll be able to stand on his own feet and provide for himself and… He can barely even _function_ and-

But he _knows_ how to hit someone.

Fifteen centuries haven’t changed _that_.

*

Later, he’s sitting on the edge of his bed. There’s no one else in the room with him at the moment, though Arthur doesn’t think that the Director realises that such an action is as much a punishment as anything else she could do.

He’s waiting; packing didn’t take that long.

Arthur’s not certain what his punishment will be. It doesn’t seem like they burn people now (here?), but there are certainly dungeons of a sort, from what he has seen on TV. And banishment seems a very real possibility. The ‘hair and the blood’ discussion with Ginger made it clear how very precarious Arthur’s tenancy in this city is.

While it was nice to lose control, no action is without implication.

More than fear for whatever punishment he may face, what Arthur really feels is bone-deep disappointment in himself. He thought he’d outgrown his rasher tendencies years ago, but apparently they’ve followed him even through the centuries.

He wonders where he’ll go next.

He’s holding Melanie’s book, looking at the numbers within, even as he knows that he can’t possibly bring his problems to her or Pete; that no one else who’s numbers he knows has either the position or independence to help him out of this hole that he’s dug for himself.

His fingers flick, idly, through the book’s pages.

Unlike the last time he tried, odd word jumps out at him, their meaning familiar now in a way that English wasn’t before.

Maybe it’s time he actually tries to _read_ it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unfortunately updates until the 19th October are likely to be slower due to some other commitments.


	21. Part 3, Chapter 2:  On Modern Punishment and the Variable Definitions of Being Fine

When Arthur arrives at the building as directed, he’s already been walking for sixty-five minutes. As he’s walked, he’s passed sights he doesn’t know how to respond to: people, structures, lights.

More than that, there are the things he _hasn’t_ passed. There have been no flowers, straggly but defiant, ringing muddy puddles. And, despite the high summer season, the only insects he has seen are flies and wasps and a single wide-winged butterfly that had been painted on a woman’s arm.

He has not seen the horizon. Only buildings followed by yet more buildings.

After signing in at _this_ building’s reception, he spends another ten minutes finding the correct room.

Does every future building have a reception? Paperwork? And, if there are a city’s worth of buildings half so large or larger, then what could possibly be inside all of them? What mysteries or mundanities?

The room Arthur enters is of comparable size to his former council chambers and has a similar forward-facing focal point. Beyond that, the similarity dies. Here, dazzling electric light washes down from long bars strung across the celling. Sleek benches with white plastic tops and steel frames have been placed in rows. Pairs of chairs, formed of brightly coloured plastics, have been set behind each desk.

There are people in the room. Mostly men, although three women are also in attendance. Their clothing, grooming level, and accessories tell tales of very different backgrounds. While Arthur knows he must miss many of the subtleties being signalled, he can spot the difference between personally tailored stitching and the more ill-fitting hang of hand-me-down clothes; can see varying levels of wear on shoes; is willing to guess that multi-coloured and perfectly coifed hair can’t be _easily_ obtained, either in terms of money or time.

One thing that all of the people present seem to share, is a certain type of discomfort. In some cases it looks like nerves; in others more like embarrassment or even aggressive displeasure.

It would appear that Arthur is not alone in being disappointed with himself.

He selects a seat towards the room’s front, and sits down. Folds his hands. Waits.

As he waits, voices fill the room. And they’re… _different_.

< Good evening, everyone. > A woman, small and rounded and with enough grey in her hair to establish her authority, walks inside. She’s bearing a stack of folded papers in her hands, and carries her smile with the same ease and purposefulness with which Arthur would handle a shield.

Putting her papers on the bench at the front, she turns to face the room once more. Smiles again. < Please, sit down. > Her hands make a small downward gesture as she speaks, as though talking with them were as natural as shaping words with her lips. < I’m Ann. Welcome. >

Ann, or rather her teachings, are to be Arthur’s penance for his transgression. Part of his penance, at any rate. (The more immediate downside to his misdemeanour was that there have been no more quiet Matt-types as roommates. Rather Arthur now shares with a rougher, louder sort. Arthur doesn’t know whether this means that the Director thinks, with his brawling, that he fits in with them. Or whether instead it’s because he has proved that he can handle their moods.)

These weekly < sessions > are to complete his punishment. Arthur’s still more than a little uncertain as to what their purpose may be. True, he has gathered that there is something that the Director and Doc Emily want him to learn by attending. However, up until this moment, Arthur had been doubtful about his ability to understand whatever it was that would be said to him. It’s a doubt that had grown this evening when he’d seen the number of people in attendance. For, clearly, this is to be a proclamation of sorts, rather than Melanie or Ginger’s more gentle, focussed communication.

Yet watching Ann as she causes her not-quite-a-tablet to send images across the wall behind her, Arthur begins to realise that maybe he’s been overly pessimistic about this particular endeavour.

*

Arthur is in, it turns out, an < Emotional Intelligence and Anger Management Course >. This is something that Ann conveys with the pictures on the < slides > behind her almost more than the short sentences she speaks.

More specifically, it is a < course > for < English as a second language > people.

Arthur – who once was a king of this realm – is now as lost to the language of its people as the foreigners also on this particular program.

As her first point of order, Ann has them turn and introduce themselves to the second person sitting at their bench. As they do so, she moves around the room leaving collections of paper on the tables.

The man by Arthur’s side is named Pedro and he speaks < Spanish >. Arthur tries to think of a way to explain that the language he speaks is, apparently, extinct, and the name by which he knew it doesn’t appear in any of the online databases he has explored.

< I’m Arthur. > He settles on. < Had head trauma. Forgot. >

Pedro’s face is briefly sympathetic, which twists Arthur’s conscience up, because he feels like he’s lying.

< How did-? > And Pedro gestures to his head, leaving Arthur in the strange dilemma of realising that he doesn’t actually _know_ how he banged his head. That everything between staggering out of Avalon and waking in the hospital is actually rather… unclear.

He’s saved from having to decide how to explain all of that (or determining whether it was worth explaining at all), by Ann calling their attention back to the front of the room.

She has an image displayed. It’s simple: a single small circle within which is the word, < fine >.

Arthur frowns, but waits for Ann to explain.

She does, quickly enough. < Who has said, I’m fine, today? >

It’s feels like the first proper question that Arthur has understood in its entirety since waking so, as he raises his hand mimicking the others in his class, he actually _does_ feel fine.

Which is when Ann goes in for the kill.

< Did you mean it? >

Arthur doesn’t know what < mean > means. But Ann is already saying, in her slow, carefully elucidated manner, < Were you fine? >

Pedro snorts, distracting Arthur from own rising indignation. < Hell, no. >

For why would she accuse them all of _lying_?

Ann looks their way. No, she looks at Pedro, and his disrespect. But, where Arthur expects irritation, or threat of punishment, instead her smile is Gaius’s as worn when Merlin has said something both very true and yet also rather untimely.

< Indeed. ‘Fine’ is often … ‘not fine’. It is a … word. And so … dig deeper. > Only the fact that she flashes up a picture of a man with a spade, digging up gold coins lets Arthur know that he has translated her somewhat correctly. For he can certainly see nothing of relevance to farming in her previous words.

He’s about to interrupt, hoping to gain clarification, when the image of the ‘fine’ circle returns. Save that now it is changed; bounded by a second circle.

< Fine is … > Ann says. < There are better words. >

Seven segments form the outer circle, positioned like blocks around a well. The first segment has a word in it: < happy >. There are pictures and images scattered across the slide: a woman in a white dress smiling up at a man holding her hands; a child on a swing under bright sunlight; a family group eating an extravagant meal in front of festive decorations...

Arthur's pretty certain that he gets the meaning of < happy > even without listening to Ann's explanation.

The images move on. The next block says < surprised > and the images have likewise changed.

For the next few moments Ann talks, though mostly it is the pictures behind her that tell the tale. She raises words with very different meaning all of which apparently mean ‘fine’. Arthur cannot find that he disagree with her assessment; that ‘fine’ is, after all, a very vague word.

He has absolutely no idea what this has to do with anything at all; he certainly hadn’t arrived expecting to receive instruction in using spoken English.

Silence rolls over the room, followed by a slow gathering of quiet activity. Around Arthur, the other supplicants are settling down to write, each with greater or lesser degrees of enthusiasm. It occurs to him that he’s missed an instruction.

As he looks around, Arthur meets the eyes of a man across the room. The man’s face is as blank as Arthur’s mind feels. It’s a strange type of kinship to know that he’s not the only one present and confused.

A shadow falls across him, and Arthur turns to see Ann looking down at him, face kind and open. < No pen, Arthur? >

Arthur shakes his head, and is offered an assorted collection of stationary. He takes the first pen that his fingers reach. It's transparent with a steel nib and an internal line of blue reaching two thirds of the way up the shaft.

< Take two. A second colour. >

He finds a similar one, but red. < Thank you. >

< You’re welcome. Do you understand? > Her voice is very patient when she asks, and Arthur doesn’t know why he trusts it enough to shake his head without concern of reprimand, although he does.

She pulls over one of the folded collections of papers. It’s held together by a single neat, twisted metal pin. < Your name. Here. > She taps a single line on the front, then opens the first of the folio’s pages.

It has a black-and-white reproduction of the diagram on the board.

It’s a small version, to be fair. The text is almost too small to make out, but otherwise exact in every specific. Even the little cartoon faces are there.

< Here, > she gestures to the copious white space around the image, < you write. > And she nods to Pedro besides him, who is scribbling away in a manner which is clearly intended to look more productive than it actually is.

< Write what? >

Asking was clearly the correct thing to do, for Ann nods apparently satisfied by something. Of course, if this were Arthur himself running a training session, he’d be reassured to know that, confused though they might be, his knights were following him at least enough to raise relevant questions. < When are you happy? > She taps the ‘happy’ block. < When are you surprised? > Another tap. < When … >

So she wants him to give examples?

It seems very strange. Yet everyone else is complying. < I understand. >

< Good. > She moves on, heading, Arthur realises, to the other confused face in the room.

Turning back to the page before him, Arthur takes a moment to commit the words there to memory. Happy, sad, disgusted, angry, fearful, bad, surprised. He feels drawn to 'angry', his attention moving easily in that direction. Yet when he picks up his pen to write, the only reflections he can think of are of happy things.

Happy things that, by being happy, also make him sad.

_Gwen_ , he writes in careful English, _walking with._

Then he crosses that out, for it does not do her justice. Instead, he writes in his own script, _Idle moments spent with Guinevere, my queen._

Of course, Gwen is gone. So next to the 'sad' box, he adds her name. Merlin's. His father's-

Stops writing and then just draws a quick sketch of the Pendragon crest because, fundamentally, all of Camelot is gone, and breaking that down name by name is likely to break him down faster.

‘Surprised’ seems almost pointlessly all-encompassing; an emotion that’s been all but drowning him even before he died. Although it might be more accurate to write ‘confused’.

He moves back to 'happy'.

_I have food to eat, and am warm, < thermostat > not withstanding. People have been very kind_, and here he does add names, the better to remind himself of just how much worse things could have been. _This punishment is not painful. I am grateful for this opportunity to-_

He stops. Finds himself blinking furiously at the words before him.

Because he is _not_ grateful. Why the blazes _would_ he be? Who would want to live like this; lost and alone! Purposeless! Looking around to see only that their legacy is all but gone; whittled down to twisted tales intended to tell children how to behave. How to live by a list of standards that is _absolutely nothing_ like the code of conduct of the world he once ruled over?

Forcing his breath to slow, Arthur very carefully crosses out the incomplete sentence, and looks around for distraction.

He's not the only one done with writing. His failure to be alone in his lack of diligence doesn't feel like a good excuse.

Besides Arthur, Pedro has put his pen down and is flicking through a thick book. For a moment Arthur is confused by the neat columns of text within. Then he realises what he is looking at. It’s a tidier version of the notes Arthur had started in the hospital, when listing English words besides his own understanding of their meaning.

It looks like it holds a great many definitions.

Word located, Pedro returns to Ann’s task. Arthur reminds himself to do likewise.

'Surprised'. It’s bold on the page, mocking him.

Melanie’s book – that ridiculous telling aimed at children – had said Arthur had a purpose. That his return was heralded by a threat which needs must be overcome.

It’s insane because, now that he’s back, it’s fairly obvious that Arthur can’t help anyone at all.

For what is a king without his kingdom?

As for the rest of what was written within? That Merlin would be there to welcome him? It should be funny, because Merlin’s time keeping always had been rather… dreadful. But Arthur can’t find it in himself to laugh. (Isn’t certain that he _wants_ to see Merlin again. Or that Merlin would think much of seeing him either.)

Pushing the uncertainty away, Arthur tries to find the humour in the idea. To imagine Merlin (who was apparently Arthur's sorcerer, protector, deceiver) just being the Merlin who Arthur thought he used to know so well; perpetually missing events that he really shouldn’t have. That, on this occasion, Merlin’s not just mistimed the dawn, but a season or two and-

Except that Merlin, naturally, is dead.

Must have been dead for centuries, though the lie fits with the intended audience of the book. A friendly waiting presence is exactly the type of thing that Arthur’s been told parents (common ones) tell their children. Certainly, to listen to Gwen or Merlin prattle on about such things, the sole role of mothers and fathers was to spin reassuring fabrications.

Though why anyone would think _Merlin_ a reassuring presence is beyond Arthur. (‘Missed’, is not the same as ‘reassuring’. Nor is ‘conflicted’.) Surely Gwen, as Arthur’s wife, would be a better choice for fables? Or, if they’d thought the silly, smiling fool they’d turned her into was too vapid for such a task, then maybe one of the knights? Elyan had always been rather sensible and-

Elyan died.

But really – old age or a sword thrust – does it make that much difference to a fool’s tale?

Would it have _killed_ the Sidhe to have spoken a single word to him, before sending him forth?

If he could just figure out _where_ Avalon lay and go _back_ there to-

< Would anyone like ... ? Any ... ? > Ann’s voice cuts through his musings.

None of Arthur’s thoughts, unsurprisingly, have made their way on to the paper. He wouldn’t even know where to start.

Someone else – an older man, with a trembling voice – is talking. Something about a daughter. The man’s voice breaks as he speaks and Arthur looks away, giving him the space that he needs to gather himself. But the man just rambles on.

There’s another person after that. Then a third. They make short statements before subsiding. Ann comments briefly on each, like a ruler over her audience, though with a great deal more liberal use of phrases like ‘very good’, ‘thank you’ and, simply, ‘yes’ than Arthur is used to hearing.

When no one else seems willing to speak up, Ann gestures to the two concentric circles on the wall behind her. < How did you ...? > It’s a question to the group at large; Ann’s face looking over them all in turn. < Was this enough? >

Arthur pulls a face. < No. >

He'd not intended to speak out. Alas that after too many years holding court, he's apparently unused to withholding input.

Ann doesn't look ruffled. < Can you ..., Arthur? >

He doesn't need to follow her question, to know that such a disruption as his own would demand explanation.

Arthur looks at the papers before him. Tries to figure out how to put things into the words which lie at his disposal. Tries to pin down a good example.

< My father, > he says, < was dead. _Is_ dead. And I- >

Arthur looks at the page before him. < Sad, > he lists off. < Angry. >

Makes himself be entirely honest. < Fearful. >

He can’t choose between them.

Ann's face is gentle and she's about to say something, but Pedro speaks over her. < Too right. After my son was ... I ... frightened. Utterly frightened … perfect baby … I ... happy, too. In love and happy, but so frightened. >

Ann is bowing her head, face grave and thoughtful. < ... more than one ... Normal. Emotions are complex. >

Arthur reminds himself that it’s his punishment to be here, and that he shouldn’t compound his crime by disrespect.

He is very carefully _not_ making a face, when Ann pulls one of Merlin’s tricks, and says something actually-very-profound. (And _was_ that a trick? Or had it been the truth of Merlin; one that he’d kept secret from Arthur?)

< To deal with them, you must fully understand them. >

Then she smiles and is wholly court jester again; joking with a truth that should be lethal.

< Dig deeper. > The shovel image. And then a third circle appears around the original ones. This one has _a lot_ more subdivisions. Arthur’s beginning to worry about how far she’s intending to take this process.

There are more words on this third layer and more complicated pictures as Ann works them around the wheel. This image, like the earlier one, is also in the folio she’s handed out. Arthur chances a glance at the page beyond. There’s a forth circle.

Besides Arthur, Pedro's flicking through his book of words. He's not the only one intently using such a compilation.

< Colour what you feel. > Arthur's not certain that he really understands what Ann's trying to get them to do. Some of the categories don’t make much sense to him and, even if he picks out just the words that he’s confident with, he ends up with almost a quarter of the categories circled in red, which surely can’t be what she intends.

When he looks over at Pedro’s activity, only three words have been illuminated.

Their eyes meet. Pedro pulls a confused face and shrugs. < I don’t know. >

They struggle on a little longer – Arthur making notes that he’s not certain he’s meant to; Pedro flicking through his book – until Ann interrupts them once more. It turns out that it’s to be for the final time. For that evening at least. < So if ... this week... > She gestures to the booklets that she'd handled out. < ... every night ... understand your feelings and ... >

When Arthur leaves, she doesn’t let him return the pens.

*

After spending time cooped up inside, Arthur is both exhausted and filled with restless energy. The walk back to the Shelter feels welcome, even when the sky above darkens with more than incoming night.

The ground under his feet is hard and unyielding.

The noise of all the people living around him (How many are there? Surely more than ever lived across every kingdom Arthur could name!) is immense.

Rain starts to fall.

Soft and mist-like, it kisses at his temples, soothing away the pain there before it can really start to build.

Those first drops of rain threaten to damage the folio Arthur’s carrying, so he tucks it under his jumper, and hopes that will keep it dry enough. Around him, strange miniature roofs carried on sticks are appearing in people’s hands. Others race past in cars, warm and sheltered to a degree that, even when he had been king of Camelot, Arthur could never have commanded.

As he passes a darkened doorway, there’s a dirty form there, apparently resting.

In Camelot, Gwen and, before her, Morgana had seen to the urchins, while the city guard had found day work for the older beggars. It hadn’t been much, but it was something.

There is so much _excess_ here; now. And yet, still those with so little.

Arthur has nothing to offer. No food and no coin. He doubts that a spare pen will be of much use. He doesn’t disturb the sleeper’s rest.

Around him, the rain starts in earnest. Arthur keeps walking, for he’s still a long way to go. There’s strange feeling in the air too, leaving him wondering whether a more violent storm might not be coming, and if he shouldn’t maybe join the vagabond in a seeking out shelter from possible lightening.

Puddles start to form and, as they fill, merge, until it feels as though Arthur is walking across a vast and rippling mirror, the lights of the summer dusk sky reflected back up at him from beneath his feet.

Then, suddenly, there’s no more sky.

Everywhere, as far as Arthur can see, there are eyes. Then lips; a smile broken and scattered across a distance of a hundred paces or more. The lips move, but there is no sound.

Hair, flowing as pondweed, seems to swirl through the puddles, but, when it reaches Arthur’s shoes, it’s no more substantial than the reflections of flying birds.

The images start to break up; large fragments showing nothing more than sky and shop windows. But, right at the end, when the strangeness reaches no further than a stride away from Arthur’s feet, he sees a bridge. It’s not a bridge that he recognises, and it’s not one that remains static. Some moments it’s stone, others wood, or metal or even, for a heartbeat, a rainbow shimmer. Yet in every manifestation, it is crumbling, cracking, as the very ground wears away from beneath it.

And then it’s gone.

Arthur’s left there, standing in the rain, surrounded by hurrying people who appear not to have seen a single thing.


	22. Language and Life

Spending time with the group from the < Adult Education Centre > is not, Arthur suspects, intended to be fun. For surely then it wouldn't make much of a deterrent. And yet he cannot deny that it is, in fact, these days the place where he's actually enjoying himself the most.

The work Ann sets (or the < self-reflective exercises > as she calls them) is... often taxing. Especially if taken too seriously. And certain members of his cohort certainly do not apply to the process the due diligence which it requires.

But Arthur is keen, not only to keep his place at the Shelter, but also so as to _not lash out_.

Oh, it's not the violence of his action against Evans that shocked him, but rather his lack of control over it. For, while surrender to baser instincts is one thing on the battle field; peaceful times call for a more deliberate application of judgement and force. (And _now_ , when Arthur is no one of consequence, that deliberate application of judgement and force is not within his rights to mete out.)

Thus it is a necessity driven by his changed circumstances which has Arthur sit down to write, if only in the quiet of night. (If sometimes his mind wanders from the task he’s been set, to ominous portents of doom…? Well, Arthur’s not aware of being evaluated in the timeliness of his record keeping. As for the ominous acts of magic themselves? They are, perversely, relaxingly familiar. He should have known that magic wouldn’t die out!)

But while the quiet of his own space is one thing, in the noise of Ann's audiences?

It’s harder to be frank then.

Arthur’s cohort seems far less reticent. They're open, these people who speak English with the same broken earnestness as Arthur. Willing to engage in a way that the men of the Shelter aren't. Arthur tries to behave likewise.

It bears its rewards.

Pedro invites Arthur for a < kick about > one Saturday, which turns into a standing invitation most evenings. The games are boisterous and sweaty. < Five-a-side >, as Pedro's wife, Raffi, laughingly calls them, before she runs along to steal the ball from one of the other < players >, her footwork exquisite. And Pedro's friends, despite surely realising that Arthur never turns up with more than the clothes on his back, don't make him feel the lesser for failing to provide the bowls of food or the cans of strong beer and overly-sweet < pop > that the other gatherers contribute.

Occasionally they play larger, more frantic, ball games with other groups only connected to Pedro and Raffi by the most tangential of ties. When Arthur goes down, hard, under a brutal misstep by an older man from one of those other teams, the apologies are profuse. Justin helps Arthur out of the playing area and sits with him, stealing ice for his knee from the beer bucket. Arthur tries to explain that it's far from the worst knock that he's taken even as his gaze tracks the melted droplets running down his limb. (Nothing strange happens to the water.) Justin, having somewhat misunderstood, ends up on a conversational diversion that includes talking about a < boxing club > near to the Shelter, run by Justin's someone, Del.

Boxing is fun, but lasts only until Arthur makes a joke about head trauma, and then (after a horrified silence) he's kindly but firmly relegated to the < gym > area.

Arthur carefully doesn't mention his hospital stay when Cristian from the class takes him along to Taekwondo, but something about that misdirection sits ill with him.

*

The more people Arthur meets, the more he realises that his past is going to be a problem. Because he has two options here. Firstly, he can continue with an ever-thinning charade that he doesn’t really remember much, which is blatantly untrue when he’s talking about his father and his wife in class. Or secondly, he can say, _I’m King Arthur of Camelot, returned_. Arthur doesn’t think that second option will go down well, for all that it’s true.

Mostly he hides behind his (real) language issues, holding them up as a barrier to excuse his unclear personal history.

It’s a fraudulence which gnaws away at him. (And, no, the hypocrisy in hiding this part of himself away, much as Merlin had spent a decade hiding his magic, is not lost on him.)

So he’s already in a fraught frame of mind when Ann puts up an image on the slide. It’s of two unhappy-looking people.

< I’m sure you … days like this. >

Arthur can think of half a dozen moments in his life where – _maybe_ – he’d been distracted enough to let such an expression cross his face. As he’s getting used to doing, he jots them down…

…then finds out that he’s misunderstood the question, because apparently the picture Ann has shown is how he’s meant to have _felt_ , not how he acted.

< And were you angry? >

Arthur thinks back to the concentric circles with all of the subdivisions of emotion. All the layers and words and feelings that hid under that one word. He gets the impression that he knows where this is going.

This time, he doesn’t write, so much as stop and listen hard, trying to pick up more detail.

< Or did you _act_ angrily? >

Well, that would depend on the situation.

But that’s not an excuse to avoid attempting Ann’s exercise, not when his participation is, apparently, how Arthur’s repaying the kindness of his host. So, instead, he tries to think back to a moment when he had, as a matter of necessity, twisted an overwhelming mess into something more manageable.

Thrown goblets, snapped words, harsh refusals: it’s not so much that Arthur _acted_ angrily, as that he _was_ angry, furious even, in those moments.

Even years after the fact, he can still remember listening to a somewhat slow, strangely engaging villager as the youth spouted unlikely tales about enchanted shields. Remembers the even more unlikely evidence. That it hadn’t been enough. Ewan’s death. His father’s cold contempt. Looking into Valiant’s eyes and _knowing_ , in that moment, that the man before him intended Arthur’s death. Not with a sword and the application of judicious force, nor even with poison and treachery, but by the worst, most inescapable fate of all; by magic.

That Arthur had no defence against that, and no honourable path away from their coming confrontation.

It wasn’t the first time he’d encountered magic, but it had been the first time he’d had to knowingly face it down, ill-prepared and unsupported.

He’d been-

(Humiliated; shamed; worried for his father should he, as sole son and heir, be hurt, and yet bitterly, _bitterly_ disappointed in the man as a king. Offended that no one would take his own word that Merlin’s word was sufficient. Affronted that Valiant would cheat, then twist the situation around to appear the wronged party. Troubled, for even Gaius’s rooms were not safe from enemy action. Mourning, if at a dignified remove, at the unnecessary death of a good knight. Frightened-)

None of which had been relevant. For it was hardly as though he could maintain the authority required to one day lead a kingdom if he gave in to distress or even fear. And anger was always able to burn the worst of those away.

< What happened next? >

He’d snapped at Merlin (who could _never_ be silent, not even when Arthur just needed to… keep everything still until he could resign himself to doing what had to be done). Had ordered him from the room and stripped him of his service.

Possibly Arthur should have chosen another target, but their father took badly to being defied, as Morgana learned in the dungeons. And as for Valiant-? Arthur had handled _him_ as well as he could; had tried the honourable route of revealing his treachery and, when that option was found to be impossible, met the man in combat.

And he _had_ apologised to Merlin.

Merlin hadn’t seemed all that bothered. Not like when, years later, Arthur dismissed Merlin’s worrying about a dead, old seer and then could barely get him to speak for days afterwards.

< Did it help? >

Arthur cannot see what Ann can possibly want him to have done other than what he did. Yes, Arthur knows that he has a temper; it’s one that he’s carefully cultivated. And, true, a stronger man might not have _needed_ to lash out. But in a choice between temper or weakness…?

< I don’t do that. > It’s Cristian who raises his hand. < I can’t do … reflection because I don’t… >

Arthur feels his own eyebrows rise, though Ann seems unperturbed as ever. < Maybe think of a time … angry after … went wrong, > she suggests.

< Right. And then? > Cristian’s arms are crossed, almost confrontationally. Arthur wonders if he even realises that he’s doing exactly what Ann’s asking about at that very moment; covering his confusion (and possibly even defensiveness) with irritation.

< You tell me. What next? >

< She threw a … at me, > Cristian smirks. < She should be here, … me. >

< So, did being angry fix the problem? >

And like that, it’s not Merlin that Arthur remembers, but rather Gwen; her sweet face troubled. He can still remember the way careful way she’d held herself, shawl drawn close as if cold despite the nearness of the fire, as she asked Arthur why he _truly_ intended to run the risk of encountering Odin.

Whether it was for sound and kingly reasons. Or in mere mortal rage at his father’s death.

She’s planted, then and there, the suggestion that vengeance shouldn’t guide his hand; a seed that bore fruit as Arthur gazed down at his bitter enemy and realised they both stood to lose more in that moment than a neat death could ever gain them.

Merlin had had that knack too. Of being insightful, sometimes to the point of distraction. Arthur still remembers needing to drive Merlin from his chambers when he wouldn’t _stop_ defending Gwen’s indefensible betrayal on the meagre (if correct) argument that Arthur loved her; remembers being frantic for the quiet. He’d got what he wanted; an empty silence to-

< Sometimes, > Arthur says, speaking slowly as much to understand the logic of what he wants to convey, as to select the words themselves, < it’s not possible to be sad. >

Or hurt. Or uncertain.

(Or even angry; and those were the worst moments of all.)

< Why not, Arthur? > Ann has Gwen’s way of posing her words. Not as challenges, but almost as a request for education. (An education in his thinking that, by spelling it out, has always taught Arthur as much as it taught her.)

He _means_ to say something about weakness, and how a leader cannot be perceived that way. But it’s both deeper than that, and yet simpler. < Sometimes strength is needed. >

Anger _isn’t_ strength. Arthur knows that well. It’s a lesson that his father taught him as a child and which has never been proven wrong as he’s aged. Angry men make mistakes. They lash out and misjudge. They overreach themselves and are considered both dangerous and unpopular.

But anger _can_ be a tool; a diversion where grief or cowardice would otherwise cut one down.

Ann nods, a slow thoughtful motion, yet not one that seems to indicate the agreement which it should. He’s expecting her to argue his assertion; that there’s ever a time to just grit one’s teeth and say it’s all ‘fine’. So it seems like somewhat of a non-sequitur when she says, < And after? >

< After? > After what?

< After the emergency? What then? >

< After is after. > When the event is done, then it’s time to move on.

And yet.

He remembers watching Gwen weeping into Morgana’s arms; grieving her father even after the moment of crisis. Has seen how Merlin turns to Gaius, seeking the affirmation that he’s never looked to Arthur for. Even Gwaine, the most independent and apparently cock-sure man Arthur has ever met, has been known to react after a tense event. If one wants to call drinking and womanising ‘reacting’.

< The problem is … fixed afterwards? > Ann asks gently. < No more emotions? >

< Yes. > Arthur nods.

< And no, > honesty compels him to add. < It- > He stops, because he doesn’t have the words.

For, when he used anger to win him through some great challenge; to drive him through a hunt or across a battle field, then, yes, afterwards all was done. The day was won. He could relax; happy and relieved. (Or, more honestly, he could count the dead, send alms to their families, set up new plans and post just-in-case watches, arrange for further supplies… There was never _actually_ an ‘after’.)

As for when he was lonely? When he had grieved?

He remembers the warmth and comfort of Merlin in his arms, muddy or not, after days spent fearing him dead. Imagines if he’d allowed Merlin’s gentle sympathy and Gwen’s tender touch after his father died. Or even Sir Leon or Sir Percival’s careful company.

< And no. > Ann echoes him, face gentle. When she continues, she has turned away from Arthur slightly; speaking more broadly to the others assembled there. < If anger is … covering … another feeling, then … still there. It … must be fixed. Is anyone … example? >

A woman with wickedly long nails raises her hand, smirking, though Arthur thinks he can see hints of self-recrimination behind that smile. She doesn’t wait for Ann to call on her, but rather says, < When … best friend died, I … Glass everywhere. > A laugh. < Fourteen stiches in hospital to fix my anger. > She wiggles her fingers. < But no one … hug. And I missed the … So, no, that didn’t fix the … She was still dead. And I was still hurt. >

*

One rainy afternoon Arthur is steered away from the park in favour of taking coffee in a bookshop.

There, not only does an indulgent Raffi let Arthur hold her heir and firstborn. Not only does Pedro gift Arthur with cake and apple juice. But, even more than that, when upon wandering through the extensive collection of all the things which he cannot read, Arthur sees a book, _Latin-to-English_ , and bends to study it; when he realises with rising excitement that it is a dictionary conveying English into, if not his own language, then at least one that he can grapple with…; when he puts that book down… Raffi picks it back up.

They take him to the merchant and gift him _that_ as well.

(If Arthur looks too long and too hard at the puddles as they depart the shop, no one comments. Arthur sees nothing strange in the reflection.)

Thus it is that Arthur passes his evenings and weekends with the group in the park. And, when they are absent, he walks, taking in the sun and searching out an end to the city that he's buried in. The days inevitably die down before the pavement peters out under his feet. But at least he sleeps soundly.

*

Arthur wakes to the sounds of shouts and running footsteps. For a moment, groggy, he can’t understand what’s going on, but long years of warning bells have his legs over the side of his bed, his feet pushing into his boots, before he’s so much as blinked the sleep from his eyes.

It takes more effort _not_ to search out Excalibur on his way to the door than it does to open that door and follow the commotion.

When Arthur arrives, there’s a group gathered around a bedroom door. On the floor by the bed there’s a man. He is, very obviously, not long for the world. Gasping, dreadful breaths wrack his body and there is frothy spittle around his mouth. His face is bloodless.

Arthur steps inside, past the people milling uncertainly and a young man yelling into a phone, and kneels to press his fingers to the man’s neck. < Need a doctor. > Assuming, of course, one can arrive in time.

< I’m _calling_ a damn doctor, > the man on the phone snaps. < Do see-pee-are. >

< I didn’t know what you- > But Arthur’s already being pushed aside by a burly man in a faded T-shirt.

< You, > the man points at Arthur. < Go to reception. Get the ay-ee-dee. Then come back. You, > this to one of the multitude behind Arthur, loitering in the doorway, < go outside and … for the ambulance. >

There’s a time and a place for arguing, but Arthur wouldn’t refuse a quest from Gaius, and he’s not about to start turning down physicians now, be they trained in courtly manners or not. He stands without needing to be asked twice. Then he starts to run; this doesn’t seem like the type of request to linger over.

When he reaches the Reception, Dora, the woman behind it, thankfully knows exactly what he’s asking for. Which makes one of them.

Apparently what Arthur has been sent to fetch is a small black case with a shimmering white cross on the front.

Dora’s trying to ask Arthur more questions, but at that moment not just one, but a gaggle, of men also reach the reception. Arthur leaves the task of explanation to them.

Arthur’s run up and down a great many staircases in his life. He’d not truly understood what the future’s obsession with was up until this moment; but the extra grip they give helps him to accelerate around the twists faster than ever.

By the time he’s back in the sick man’s room, the burly maybe-a-physician is pounding away on his chest hard enough to surely cause irreparable damage. Everyone else is just standing there, watching, so Arthur has to assume that, violent though everything appears, it’s considered appropriate.

< Open it! > The physician snaps.

Arthur looks at the case he’s holding. Kneels besides the two men, and unzips the seal. It opens like a clamshell, with a large orange box in one half and a collection of odds-and-ends in the other.

Another command is snapped at Arthur, but, before Arthur can ask any more questions, the physician is turned away, mouth sealed over the other man’s mouth.

Arthur looks down at the opened case mostly because he has no idea where else to direct his gaze and…

There are printed-paper comics in a panel along the bottom of the case. The first one indicates lifting the orange box free of its container, so Arthur does likewise. The second tells him that he should be taking the long earphone-type cable from a packet, and plugging it into the orange box. There are some large hospital-dressing-type things on the far end of the cable, each of which has an image on the back, but before Arthur can get too far in inspecting them, the physician is tugging them from his grip and, after yanking the sick man’s shirt up thus baring his chest and belly, has started to apply them.

As he looks like he knows what he’s doing, Arthur ignores him in favour of studying the rest of the images.

Apparently Arthur’s meant to be pressing a large green button next.

What follows is not the strangest moment in Arthur’s life. He’s had far too many to count. But it is certainly odd. One moment he’s being yelled at to stay away, the next moment he’s being told to hit an orange button. One moment they’re all listening to a talking box, the next, the physician’s back to doing his pressing thing. Then two strangers dressed in green barge through the door and everything descends into farce.

*

Later. After the sick man (Williams, someone had called him) had been carried away in a narrow wheeled cot. After Steve, who is _not_ it transpires a physician, but rather a < hero >, has gone to put the kettle on. After everyone has gone back to their rooms and the start of their days.

Doc Emily finds Arthur.

She seems worried and fusses around him a lot. She keeps telling him that he did very well, and asking whether he feels alright.

From that alone he knows that Williams died. But then, Arthur had suspect such would be his fate from the moment he laid eyes on him.

*

He phones Ginger.

Maybe he shouldn’t. She’d said to message, not call. But Arthur’s feeling…

It’s not that he’s cut up about that morning, or anything. He’s seen the deaths of far too many people he’s known far better. He knows how life goes. Part of how it goes is hand-in-hand with mortality.

Yet, still, he feels _something_.

Ann had said they should not bury that.

< Arthur! > Ginger sounds delighted. < I was so worried! >

Just like that, he remembers her family, that happy smiling photograph of them: dead. And he cannot bring himself to offer up to her yet more of the same.

< How are you? > He asks instead. < I’m fine. > And then he settles in; listening to a conversation he can barely follow.

*

It’s still on his mind that evening: that death – the whole unexpected instantaneousness of it – is ever-present.

It’s not that he means to mention it in Class. It’s more that they talk about _so many_ different things that it was bound to come up. Arthur tries to keep his mention brief and factual.

Besides him, Pedro looks horrified.

Arthur _really wasn’t_ expecting Pedro to be a hugger.

As he’s leaving that evening, Ann calls him over. < Arthur. About today. > He’s expecting condolences; futile and unnecessary. Instead Ann says, < Do you want to learn see-pee-are? Because I know a place, if you wanted to help them. >


	23. Interlude: Lee

Em’s first assignment (to Budapest, no less, which is at least classy) is a bust.

After they’ve checked out the non-existent scene, they stop in a little café, looking over people coming and going whilst they sit savouring coffee. It’s very nice coffee.

“I was hoping for vampires,” Em says.

Lee, who hasn’t bothered watching horror movies for the last two decades, grimaces. “There is no such thing as a vampire,” he says, all whilst wishing that Em would take their trip for what it is: a nice chance to get out of the office. Not every moment has to be doom and terror.

“That’s not what Terrance says.”

Terrance _should_ be an older balding guy in a suit. At least, that’s the image such a name evoked when Lee was growing up. But times change. He’s met Terrance, a fellow member of Em’s training cohort, and the only part of Lee's mental picture that held true was that he was a guy.

“I’ve never seen a vampire.” Lee says, because that’s true. He’s also never come across a witch who’s been more dangerous for ‘bespelling’ her crystals rather than tossing them at his head. However, that’s not exactly the same thing as there _being_ no vampires or witches. “And neither has anyone else who’s opinion I trust.”

Terrance, as a newly qualified member of the Inquisition, doesn’t really count. NQs never do.

Em hums then picks up her cup for a dainty sip. It’s a strangely indifferent note to be coming from her. In hindsight, Lee should have paid more attention to that.

*

Because Em is newly qualified, and also because she needs to practice being on the other side of the road, it’s expected that she drive their hire car as they return to the airport.

Non-the-less, Lee’s been in the business for long enough to know to keep half an eye on their progress, passenger or not, and so he notices the wrong turn immediately. He doesn’t say anything, because there are always other flights, and also because he’s curious to see what will come of this. It’s not like Em to make mistakes.

When she passes a sign clearly indicating that the airport lies in a different direction, he rules out their current route being an error on her behalf and runs the likely alternatives. At the top of the list is betrayal. Kidnapping, ambush, ransoming: that sort of thing.

He’s known Em for a little while now though. Two years, give or take. And, while her behaviour could be explained in such a manner, Lee finds himself doubting those scenarios.

(He does take a moment to consider whether or not he’s being influenced by a desire to not kill her. Certainly, she’s the most promising trainee Lee’s mentored and he’s hopeful for her future in the way that he suspects some fathers are for their daughters. Of course, if she’s foolish enough to betray the Inquisition then he’s misjudged that promise.)

Yet, if it’s not an error, and not a betrayal, and still she’s failed to explain her diversion to him…?

Lee lets himself sit back and relax. Pretends to fall asleep, though he doubts Em will believe the act.

They drive out of the main part of the city quickly enough, ending up in a small town-come-suburb. Em pulls into a cluttered carpark besides an unremarkable supermarket and turns off the ignition. “Lee,” she starts. Then hesitates.

“I take it you’re not planning to pick up some local sweets to take back to the guys in the office,” Lee says. Her frown is all the confirmation he needs.

The way that she keeps her hands on the steering wheel, despite their parked status, is enough to let him know that she’s uncertain.

She’s trying to show off, he realises abruptly, yet isn’t quite certain how to carry it off.

“You want to tell me something.” It’s a guess, but a calculated one.

Em, when she looks at him, isn’t startled that he’s read her that well, but is instead wearing a slightly grateful smile. “There’s a facility here.”

A facility? Lee’s starting to hear a different type of alarm-bells ringing. He keep his voice mild as he says, “They’re in many places.”

“But this one I can get into.”

“Oh?” It’s not that Lee doesn’t believe her. Em’s not the type to lie and – as their current location seems to indicate that she’s planning on taking him there – then it wouldn’t have seemed like a good brag even to a person a good deal less clever than Em.

That said, NQs don’t get access to random facilities.

Not that Lee’s ever heard.

He holds his silence, waiting for Em to fill it.

Silence is a common interrogation tactic; one on the bottom rung. If he were interrogating Em, it’s not one Lee would bother with; she isn’t the type to fall for it. But as he’s not interrogating her – just waiting for her to explain what she wants from him; what she intends by the two of them being here; now – then silence is entirely logical.

She’s the one who’s revised their plan, and so she’s the one that needs to do the talking.

He wonders how much she’ll tell him, and what it will mean.

“Terrance sent me a keycard.” She doesn’t pull it out of wherever she’s stashed it and Lee doesn’t ask to see it. If she says the card exists, then it probably does.

Instead he parses the rest of her sentence for meaning. Terrance is also NQ and so shouldn’t have keycard access. He shouldn’t be distributing keycards. Certainly shouldn’t have copied one for Em. And Em shouldn’t have given Lee the details of Terrance’s involvement; not if she wants to protect her source; not if she thinks that Lee could be a threat.

Em’s trying to tell him that (she thinks) he’s one of them; that he can be in on this sneak-peek into a restricted area arranged with her ‘friends’.

Which means that the whole Em-Terrance-whoever-else thing is most likely to be a below-board trainee-based conspiracy, rather than an official test that Em’s got dragged into. The Inquisition’s official tests are all much more believable, not to mention, more purposeful.

“Are we going in?” He asks.

Em smiles, wide and energised. They get out of the car.

*

The Inquisition facility is a short walk from where they leave the car, but the route they take is indirect. Em’s avoiding cameras, Lee realises, even though she hasn’t made any attempt to rectify the most likely detail to incriminate them: their missed flight check-in.

It’s amusing watching her using her skills in the field; almost there, and yet still with gaps that could one day get her in to trouble.

Em’s nearly-but-not-quite method repeats when they swipe into the lobby of a non-descript building; she turns to pick up a white coat from a rack besides the lift door. Lee stops her.

Squares his shoulders.

Looks at her until she does likewise.

There’s a trick, one Lee learned years ago, to getting away with being in places where you shouldn’t be: you have to act like you should be there. _That’s_ the time for stolen lab coats, or faked notes on clipboards.

But the trick to getting away with being _found_ in places where you shouldn’t be? (Which is exactly what’s going to happen here; because people doesn’t just wander, unauthorised, into Inquisition facilities.) The knack there is in being arguably ‘innocent’.

They’re Inquisition; this is Inquisition property. So the resulting investigation into their misconduct is likely to be a slap on the wrist. As long as the higher ups believe it to be an honest mistake.

_NQ Em received a key card and instructions to attend the facility on day X._ Lee can already hear the story he’ll spin. _We believed we were part of a routine walk-through inspection and so proceeded to the facility. In hindsight I should have questioned why such an instruction came through an NQ rather than being issued directly to me. However, at the time we had no reason to expect foul play. After entering, we moved randomly though the building, ensuring that correct protocols were adhered to in preparation to compiling our report for our departmental head and-_

Lee’s never used exactly that excuse before (never repeat fabrications), but it’s a sound one.

He summons the lift.

He’s curious, he has to admit that to himself.

Em enters the lift behind him and hits the button for the second basement from the bottom. Lee approves of the choice. It looks nicely random. Clearly she’s following his thinking.

The lift takes them down.

*

That evening, sitting in the departure lounge, waiting for the last flight out of Budapest, Lee tries to still his thoughts.

Besides him, Em is eating a sandwich from the one shop still open and serving. There’s a blush of excitement to her cheeks and Lee knows, with bone deep certainty, that even when they get called up for their unauthorised visitation, Em’s going to be just fine.

Oh, she might get reassigned. (Might even end up working back in the facility they’ve just seen. Or perhaps one like it. Because, if there’s one such research area, then there must surely be more.) But the Powers That Be will take one look at Em’s dedication and her fortitude and put her on an ever-accelerating fast track to the shadowy leadership.

No. It’s himself that Lee’s worried about.

It’s a concern that he’s careful to keep buried down deep as he forces himself to read the newspaper he’s holding and to _actually take in the details_.

Because what he’d seen-

Em and Terrance were right. It would appear that there are, indeed, vampires. Though that, in and of itself, is not the bit that’s eating away at Lee. He’s seen things that ‘don’t exist’ before.

What he’s never before seen is the inside of the Inquisition’s research labs. Now that he has? Well, Lee suspects that the empty look in that damn creature’s eyes is going to linger in his nightmares for far longer than it has any right to.

Quite possibly until Lee’s next trip to the Evaluators.

Which will not go down well.


	24. Part 3, Chapter 4: The Thorn God’s Hall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some small warnings here for Arthur being medieval (in particular, using the word ‘simple’ in a manner which is offensive) and also for some cross-generational ignorance around sexuality.
> 
> There’s also a short Greek quote in here (which apparently never existed, but is commonly misattributed to Socrates). I’m invoking artistic licence to claim that, not only did Socrates say the words, but also my use of Google Translate from English to modern Greek will suffice. The Greek roughly means ‘children are rude, they gobble their food, and they have no respect for their elders’ and should make sense when it appears in the chapter. Apologies to anyone with a Classics background!

When Ann offered Arthur a chance to help out, he’d not really known what to expect. But to be granted Melanie’s old title, volunteer, had boded well.

On the first afternoon, Arthur meets Ann outside a brick building of what, in the current world, would be considered middling-dimensions. Walking around the side, they enter through a heavy wooden door, to find themselves immediately in a vast internal space which appears to take up the majority of the building.

Though Arthur can hear muffled voices nearby, there are only two elderly men in all that space. They’re setting out trestle tables and plastic chairs. Healthy though people now remain into old age, Arthur cannot help but judge the task to have been inappropriately allocated.

< … people … eat here. > Ann says. Looks at her watch. < In about two hours. >

So the hall is to house a feast? The decorations are… not as Arthur would expect.

He’s still not entirely certain what he is intended to do here. Nor what this place has to do with learning the physician’s art; it certainly doesn’t look like a hospital.

Arthur’s trying to decide how best to gain clarification, when a door on the far side of the hall opens, emitting a cloud of steam and the frantic noise of a busy kitchen. A demurely dressed woman hurries across the distance between them, carrying a cleaning cloth in one hand and wearing an expression that, if not harried, is only just removed from that. < Ann! … here? >

< Sorry. I … >

The two women come together, words flowing too quickly for Arthur to follow, until the new woman, looking over Ann’s shoulder at Arthur, hesitates then gestures to the old men. < Would you be a love and … ? >

Leaving aside the fact that the woman is giving him what Arthur can only assume is a pet name, her intent is clear enough. For a moment he pauses, unimpressed by the non-existent greeting, then walks over the two old men, busy with their assigned furniture moving.

Or, rather, busy _not_ moving. Apparently watching him is more interesting. Arthur holds his head up and refuses to appear shamed by being ordered about so perfunctorily. < Hello. >

< I see you …, Fatima? > The man speaking is the shorter of the two and clean shaven. When he smiles, deep folds form at the corners of his eyes. < … > As he’s clearly trying to say something pleasant, Arthur smiles back, but when the man’s flood of words comes to an end, he can’t prevent the silence that pools around them.

In that silence, the man’s smile doesn’t exactly falter, but his head cocks with bird-like curiosity, something more judgemental entering his eyes. If Fatima and Ann’s dismissal stung, it’s nothing compared to the realisation that this man must assume Arthur simple.

< Nice to meet you, > Arthur grits out in the face of that presumption.

< Will, > the other, bearded, man breaks into their conversation, holding out a hand. < Nice to meet you, too. >

Will? Of all the names to last the centuries, it would have to be that one!

But Arthur smiles and puts away thoughts of sorcery. It’s just a name, and sorcery seems but a dream now. < Arthur, > he offers as he shakes Will’s hand in the modern manner.

Will blinks. Looks at his companion, who grins widely before saying, < I’m Arthur. >

< No. > Arthur corrects carefully. < _I’m_ Arthur. >

< That makes two of us, > the old man – Arthur – grins before adding < Get that, Will! > although there is nothing to fetch, and then the two men start to cackle together. All the words that they say fail to illustrate the cause of their humour. < About time … classic name … cool kid now … back in fashion. >

Arthur can’t remember ever having met anyone with his name. It’s… strangely disquieting to realise that he’ll have to share.

What will they do if someone calls out? How will they know who should respond?

Maybe the two men notice his hesitance or perhaps they’ve encountered such problems before. Will is laughing, calling them Arthur the Younger and Arthur the Older; Big Arthur and Little Arthur (ridiculously attributing ‘big’ to the old man, despite Arthur being a good bit taller); or, worst of all, Arthur One and Arthur Two. For, no, Arthur _does not_ appreciate coming second, especially considering he was most definitely born earlier.

Just before Arthur’s ready to bow out of their conversational insanity in search of Ann, Arthur the Older clips Will on the shoulder. < … , Will. > And then, to Arthur, < … me Art. Everyone does. Even this … >

*

Setting out tables and chair is not complicated. It’s not even especially heavy work; not like setting up the thick wooden constructions in Camelot must have been. Despite never having engaged in such an activity before, Arthur quickly ends up taking over the bulk, Will and Arthur pottering around behind him, occasionally lending a hand when opening out the larger trestles.

It’s not as fast as it could be, but Arthur finds it hard to begrudge the old men their dereliction. It’s hardly their fault that their < employer > has assigned them a task better suited to a younger body.

As they follow him, they alternate between peppering Arthur with questions, chattering together, and throwing in the type of ‘helpful guidance’ particular to old men determined to find fault in the skills of their children’s children.

< Are you Christian? Or Jewish? Agnostic? >

< Are you a father? >

< How do you … your tea? >

Arthur’s slip comes from an innocuous enough question. < You’re married? >

Arthur hesitates. Doesn’t want to ruin the cheerful atmosphere. Accepts that there’s no helping that, and tells them that she died. It’s strange to say; still feels unreal for all that it must be true.

Will laughs. < They do that. Women! >

Arthur stares at him, genuinely aghast.

Will appears not to notice, instead continuing to straighten a row of chairs while rambling along about a story that Arthur has not the presence of mind to even attempt to follow.

For Arthur’s mind is caught on Gwen. Not as the queen she became, but as the serving girl he’d first known. He can almost imagine her here, moving between the tables, checking that everything’s in order before leaving to help prepare Morgana. If he closes his eyes, he can almost _hear_ the pattern of her steps; the rasp of her dress as it brushed against the furniture; the slight inhale of her breath before she’d lean in to say-

< Arthur? >

He opens his eyes to realise that he’s worried his two impromptu-supervisors.

And, like that, he knows exactly what’s happened. ‘Cried’. And ‘died’. He feel his face burn. Such a foolish thing to misspeak!

He’d thought he’d been getting _better_ at English.

Arthur’s prevented from having to formulate a reply by a familiar ringing buzz in his pocket. Eager for the distraction, he pulls out his phone while saying, < Excuse me. >

Will frowns. < Call … later? >

< No money. > Arthur shrugs. His options are, unfortunately, to take the call or miss Ginger entirely. < Five minutes. > It’s strange to justify his actions to another, but Ann and Fatima have clearly left him under Will and Art’s oversight. Arthur would be remiss in not making the effort.

Besides, the call is actually a faster call than time specified. Ginger, ever sweet, is happy to call back at a later time.

The damage, however, is done.

Arthur has never, in all his years, suffered an enchantment that transformed him into a pray animal. He has, however, been sized-up as potential husband material by a large number of visiting nobles. The focus the old men have fixed on him is not dissimilar.

< Who was …? Your wife? >

It’s none of their business. That said, there can be little enough harm in honesty and friendly conversation is something Arthur finds himself missing. He can’t see how being known to communicate could possibly damage Ginger’s reputation; she has made her romantic choices clear and her ladies seem equally committed.

Yet Art and Will seem determined to misconstrue.

At some point Arthur loses control over his own phone to Art’s deft manoeuvring. It reminds him of Mordred, with his knack of twisting Arthur’s blade free. Or, more innocuously, Percival reclaiming the wine jug from Gwaine.

< She’s pretty, > Art says firmly even before he can have seen Ginger’s picture. In truth, the old man barely even has the phone in his hand. It leaves Arthur’s reasonably certain that he’d be told the same minor pleasantry regardless of the woman in the photo.

It’s fairly obvious who, or rather what, Art thinks he’s looking at.

< She’s lesbian, > Arthur says firmly. Because rumours get started every day over smaller misunderstandings and he doesn’t want to potentially complicate her happiness.

He needn’t have bothered. < And? Sometimes … you know? > It’s an insinuation which proves, apparently, that being a fool isn’t something that the future has managed to fix.

< Just friends, > he tries firmly.

< Sometimes … babies … > Which has got to be the most ridiculous suggestion ever. Why ever would Ginger want to break up a perfectly good and barren ‘marriage’ for a child neither of them could provide for? Have the men never seen what happens when famine and poverty prevents villagers from feeding their children?

It takes far longer than it should do to get them to drop their gossip. In the end, only the changing hour and need to resume setting up the room motivates them to abandon their inappropriate matchmaking. But, once it’s done, they swoop back over to Arthur under the guise of taking him to the kettle. Apparently he’s the most interesting thing to happen all day.

*

After the tables are set out, Arthur finally meets the liege of the hall, Missus Moore. She’s the type of woman that his father _should_ have had a fondness for, appearing as she does both stern and reserved, save that instead Uther Pendragon had always seemed to hold a weakness for women in need.

She says a few small pleasantries, but it’s clear that her mind is on more pressing matters and she leaves quickly enough to instruct Will and Art in a new activity. Apparently they are now to start moving crockery about.

It’s as Arthur’s about to pick up a large tray of bowls that his phone buzzes again. Ignoring Art and Will's raised eyebrows, Arthur risks a quick look at the screen. This time it’s a message, not a call. The message is from Pedro.

_Delivery driver_ the caption reads. There’s an image of a smiling man in uniform besides a brightly coloured merchant cart.

Arthur doesn't drive.

He also doesn't reply, both because he doesn’t have any phone credit, and because that doesn't seem to be the purpose of these little texts from Pedro. Raffi, as far as Arthur understands, is worried about him. She wants him out of the Shelter. Thinks that he needs to be somewhere where less people die. She’s probably besides Pedro right now, making suggestions for earning a living while they prepare their dinner.

Arthur has a whole collection of captioned images by now.

Not, if Cristian is to be believed, that these unlikely offerings will help. Cristian had been rather adamant on that point the last time they all met up. Because now Arthur is in the future. And _that_ , apparently, means that even working to support one’s self depends on paperwork.

< Is … your wife? >

Arthur has never in all his days regretted mentioning Gwen. Today is proving an exception to the norm for many reasons.

< No. My friends. > And he doesn’t deserve the look that’s currently directed his way. It's not as though he hasn't spent the last hour sorting out Will and Art's tasks, while the two of _them_ gossiped together.

< That's young people now, Will. Leave him be, he … Not like us when we … young … >

“Now and a thousand years ago,” Arthur mutters. Do they _really_ think there’s ever been a golden age of productive youth?

< What was ..., lad? >

It's clear that Arthur's meant to be embarrassed. Instead Arthur's already repeating it in his best, irritated English, before he realises just how like _Merlin_ he sounds.

It's that realisation, more than being caught out talking to himself in his own language, that makes Arthur flounder.

< Oh! How does it... ? > And then, of all things, Will says, in utterly hideous Greek, “Τα παιδιά είναι αγενή. Καταβροχθίζουν το φαγητό τους.”

“Δεν έχουν σεβασμό για τους ηλικιωμένους τους,” Arthur finishes. < Yes. Eternal. >

Will laughs.

*

At last their preparation time is up. The hall is ready, if not exactly welcoming. Missus Moore reappears, heading towards the main doors. Arthur, curious, follows her.

Outside, a line has formed. Arthur hadn't heard the people arriving, too distracted to pay their sounds any attention.

He also hadn't given much thought to the type of guests attending, though looking back, the signs were clear. The lack of embellishment; the functional lay out; the lack of fanfare.

For outside the hall are the city's poor.

It takes a moment for Arthur to understand, in part because not all of those assembled are ill-dressed. But the tense silence? The single people and the small family clusters?

While Missus Moore is already inviting the first people in, directing them to a small opening in the wall through which the kitchen servants are visible with their ladles and bowls at the ready, Arthur realises where he has overseen such gatherings before. That this is a place of emergency rationing.

Arthur hadn't realised that there would be those without even food in this future.

After the sleeper in the rainstorm, maybe he should have guessed.

In that instant, Arthur imagines a strange resonance. For hadn't Melanie’s book, in between the bits he could not read, spoken of his return? To help when there was need?

But even the briefest of thought shows that this doesn't fit.

This place isn't created by his command; nothing Arthur's done today is different to anything that has evidently been done over a great many proceeding days.

When Arthur first awoke, he’d assumed that there must be something he was intended to achieve, if only to return to Camelot and rule. Later he’d wondered if the Disir might possibly have communicated with the Sidhe; dictating terms of punishment for not accepting the old religion. Then Arthur had finished Melanie’s book (sort of) which made claims about < destiny > (or, more understandably, as his English-to-Latin < dictionary > put it _fatum_ ).

Quite possibly the book has been as incorrect about him as it has proved about both Gwen and Merlin. For, as noble as feeding the poor is, Arthur’s far from certain that it can be described as an underlying purpose worthy of resurrection. As for describing it as people’s moment of greatest need? Or a way of uniting people?

When Arthur had been a king, such great actions had been within his gift. But now? The Sidhe or druids or Gods or whoever should have sent back a witch. For what can _he_ possibly achieve? Say what one would of Morgana, she at least had magic to back up her will.

As for Arthur?

A king needs a kingdom. Arthur's father had always been clear on that. Clear, too, on what such a thing entailed. That there must be a stronghold from which to rule and an army to carry out one's will, though those alone were not sufficient. That a king also needed land; a stretch of territory from which food could be harvested, stone could be hewn, houses built, and into which one's dead could be interred.

And, of course, a king needed a people to rule over and to protect. Without those people, he was little more than a petty bandit heading up a raiding party.

Arthur has none of those things.

*

Fated or not, Arthur ends up spending most of the evenings when he’s not seeing Raffi and Pedro at the < soup kitchen >. Even if he does appear to be acting as a servant (an unpaid and unhoused one), it’s clear the work is needed. And, supported as Arthur is by the charity of the Shelter, it seems churlish to mention money.

At first there are just the tables to move and supplies to carry into the kitchens. One evening, though, Missus Moore sets him to peeling potatoes. It’s as dull a task as it looks, made worse by the fact that the main reprieve from boredom is conversation. With their lightening-quick comments, Arthur simply cannot keep pace with the words that flow around him.

After the potatoes, there are onions to < dice >, then a pot of indeterminate _something_ which must be stirred and kept from bubbling over. Later he’s put in charge of sorting the vegetables. Missus Moore inadvertently cements Arthur’s reputation with Art and Will as a modern-day-Gwaine when she says he must have charmed the supermarket liaison. Apparently the vegetables they’re receiving are staying fresh for longer than ever before. As Arthur’s done no such charming, he’s fairly certain that whoever had this task before him must just have been putting things away wrong.

Other evenings involve less time cooking and more time settling commotions. Sometimes they’re caused by those who’ve tried to find their answers using too much alcohol. (Argumentative though such drunks can be, they usually back down before Arthur even without armed guards and his sword.) Sometimes, though, the source of friction is harder to pin down, like the bitter row centred on two small family groups, which takes Missus Moore firmly intervening to say, < _Everyone_ is welcome here. > While Arthur had seen the various pieces of iconography around and can read the Greek inscription well enough, until that moment he hadn’t realised that people _in this very city_ still squabbled so over religion. Evidently some things really do never change. Only now it doesn’t appear to be over whether to hang wards for the Goddess, to make offerings to the Roman Parthenon, or to hear an emissary from the Norse gods’ worshippers.

In time Arthur does, indeed, end up learning < CPR >. He’s also shown the < Heimlich manoeuvre > and how to handle cuts and burns. What he doesn’t learn, is the one thing that’s resting heavily on his mind: whether there’s a reason he has returned, and what his vision could have to do with that.


	25. Part 3, Chapter 5: Officials and Their Paperwork

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains brief descriptions of an attempted violent attack. While I don’t _think_ that it's significantly more explicit than would be covered in the TV show, if you have concerns, please see the End Note for further details/spoilers.

Arthur wakes to the unexpected weight of someone sprawling across him. After a decade of Merlin’s unique approach to ‘service’ this isn’t the bit that drags Arthur into frantically alert wakefulness. No, that would be the all-too familiar chill of steel against his throat.

Arthur’s hand is on top of his attacker’s, clenched around the knife hilt, even before he opens his eyes. When he does, it’s to recognise his new roommate.

The man’s hissing something in Arthur’s ear; words Arthur doesn’t even try to understand as every other instinct kicks into overdrive. The time of day with dawn’s dim light slanting through the blinds; the lack of any other attackers and the still locked door; the way that the man’s free hand is wrenching at Arthur’s fingers. The fact that Excalibur is, unfortunately, both blunt and far too far under the bed- It all comes to Arthur with perfect immediacy.

And then, situation sufficiently understood, Arthur acts.

*

He’s still shaken when, a careful inspection of his room (confirming both the presence of his own belongings and the absence of his rapidly departed roommate’s), one hot shower, a bit of sticking tape on the worst of his scrapes, and three hours later, Arthur heads downstairs.

It’s not the violence of the interaction that’s shaken him. Not exactly. He’s experienced far worse before and, in a strange dark corner of Arthur’s mind, the battle-energy and spiking shock are almost welcome in their familiarity. It’s just that he’d thought, maybe, that the future wouldn’t… be quite like _that_.

Evidently not.

His mind flickers to the lockbox Ginger gifted him all those days and weeks ago. Had she foreseen the potential for petty theft?

Arthur doesn’t own much that’s small enough to fit in the red metal box; certainly his armour won’t. Of the few things he cares for, only Melanie’s book and maps are left regularly in his room. (The mobile and tablet both being more useful if he keeps them close by.) He puts the papers in the box; puts the box with his hospital bag. Decidedly _does not_ remove his rings. If they mark him out so much for robbery, then he might as well deflect attention from those weaker than he, yet also recipient to similar small familial tokens.

He’s planning to sit in the Shelter’s lobby, searching through the expansive reaches of the internet for information on criminal law (and the treatment of those who menace others), when Dora, the receptionist, calls him over. Apparently someone’s left a message for him.

It’s Officer MacAdam.

Arthur had been hoping that he’d seen the last of her and her incomprehensible glory-fixation.

Then he remembers the earlier incident and everything seems just a little too… coincidental. Had the robber tried to twist the morning’s tale to his own advantage? Had he taken the matter to the officers, as the Director had indicated was the norm, all those weeks ago when Arthur first arrived?

Dora actually handles his return call to Officer MacAdam, telling Arthur that the officer will meet him in one of the < study rooms > in an hour, and giving him a room number. Arthur hadn’t even realised that those rooms were accessible to residents.

Arthur spends most of the hour trying to be productive. He makes some notes about the incident (including an approximation of the main words in English). Considers how best to explain that he didn’t start the incident, and that removing him from the Shelter would be a disproportionate action. Is somewhat hindered by the fact that he doesn’t even know the name of the attacker.

(Arthur does _not_ want to end up sleeping in doorways or begging Missus Moore for food. Feels, for a moment, the cold stone and brick and concrete of the city closing in around him; a place where _everything_ apparently belongs to _someone_ and where nothing can simply be built from the land's bounty.)

The hour’s wait clicks towards an end.

At the last moment, Arthur decides to make Officer MacAdam a cup of tea, because that seems like a low-level way to try to manipulate her to acting in his favour. While he’s not exactly certain how she takes her drink, back in the hospital Pete had always been very insistent about milk and sugar, so that’s that Arthur adds.

It’s only as Arthur’s picking up the drinks – tea for her, water for him – that the question crosses his mind: how had _he_ known to approach, of all the < police >, Officer MacAdam?

Arthur’s so focussed on trying to figure out how to explain to Officer MacAdam that he’s stopped even _asking_ for his roommate’s names these days (and since when is that normal; a basic courtesy that he’s found suitable to abandon?) that when he enters the Study Room to find her already there, it is she who starts to speak first.

< Arthur! You look well. > Considering he’s expecting trouble, she doesn’t _sound_ hostile to him.

< I have tea. > He holds out the mug.

< Thank you. > She smiles. < Your English is much … it? > But then her smile fades from her face when she takes the mug and must see his hands.

For a moment Arthur expects her to comment, but for all her bloodthirsty curiosity, she doesn’t ask him what happened. Rather, she says, < Let’s sit. >

She’s brought paperwork with her. _Of course_ she has. There are pages and pages; half of which she expects Arthur to keep (and no, they won’t fit in Ginger’s gifted lockbox, so he’ll have to find another safe place for them.) It’s only as she starts to talk about DNA and blood, that it occurs to Arthur that the officer’s appearance here, today, has absolutely nothing to do with the incident in the morning.

It almost seems too much to believe. Until Arthur remembers that minor acts of harm (the fight with Evans, Williamson’s death, shouting and brawling from some of the youths down the hall) seem to occur on nearly a daily basis. That, on any given morning, Officer MacAdam’s appearance could be linked to a deeper problem.

Arthur thinks he might be beginning to understand why Raffi remains so worried about him living here.

Then he tries to focus on understanding the visit’s actual reason. While he might be following better than he would have in their earlier meetings, it’s still an art in picking through the pieces to form a complete mosaic. Certain things stand out. Things like < no open cases involving you > and < approximate … blood … indicates … > and, strangely, < Welsh >; a territorial name summoned from a map.

Arthur _thinks_ that she’s trying to tell him that he belongs here. Then she passes him a small printed map and writes a date and time on it. Says something about Mister Patterson that Arthur doesn’t quite make out.

Then she leaves. It’s only after she’s gone that Arthur looks at the date on the paper.

It’s the same date as Cristian’s birthday.

*

Cristian’s birthday is not, apparently, meant to be a large feast or spectacular celebration. Rather, his sister is a baker. She’s intending to close her shop early to host, and there will be cake and coffee and wine. A small gathering of friends and local family members. It’s perhaps silly to look forward to such an event when once he could have ordered feasts every evening. (Well. Not _every_ evening. That would have led to food shortages and increased taxation and then riots. Yet the point remains.)

When he next sees his < friends > in the park, Arthur suggests that they move it to lunch. Pedro throws back his head, laughing a refusal even before Cristian’s opened his mouth. < Just be late, Arthur. >

< Why not change? > For there’s something strangely immediate in Pedro’s refusal of Arthur’s proposal which, unexpectedly mocking as it was, seems disproportionate to Arthur’s concerns about interfering with the hostess’s plans.

Cristian gives Arthur one of those looks which lets him know that he's clearly missing something utterly fundamental in his logic. < Work, Arthur. We need money. >

Arthur feels his confusion build. Because it's a beautiful, sunny day. Surely perfect for earning money on? < Why no today work? >

< It's Saturday, Arthur. >

A long conversation follows, wherein Cristian lets Arthur know that modern day < workers > are beholden to their < bosses > such that they _must_ , without fail or excuse, attend every single day between specific points of time, regardless of any other commitments.

< How else could ... work ? >

Arthur thinks of Camelot; of people around when they were needed, yet otherwise attending to their daily lives. Merlin, of course, had taken his liberty further than maybe than he should have been allowed, gallivanting off to the inn at all times and hours, and not reappearing at times for days on end and-

It crosses Arthur's mind, quick as a fish flashing up a waterfall, that Merlin, with his magic, might just possibly have-

He slams the thought shut. Bad enough that he'd spent ten years excusing Merlin's tardiness; that it could be linked to his illicit tendencies and his deception of Arthur is beyond Arthur’s ability to address on this sun-blessed morning.

< Why that... > Arthur makes a gesture. Tries to find the words. Can only come up with metaphor: < ...buried in stone? >

< Well. > Cristian looks flummoxed. < How else? >

< Don't. > Raffi laughs. < Don’t start, Arthur. … many years of employment law … worker safety. >

Considering the mess he’s encountered while wading through criminal law, it’s perhaps perverse that Arthur wants to look up 'employment law'. He wonders if Ginger will have any simplified webcomics on _that_. He resolves to ask her the next time she calls.

Looking around at the sun kissed grass, surely even lusher and more speckled with flowers than when he first saw it despite the lengthening of summer, Arthur tries to imagine working purely to rote. To ignoring the opportunities of a day such as this, even when no immediate reason or underlying need existed. If he’d been in Camelot, even as a king, on a day like today, Arthur would have been driven to switch the knights’ training with the Council Meeting, or to have pushed everything back in favour of taking a short ride out to inspect the needs and condition of the local farms.

< That's strange. What if- > He tries to find an example suitable to this new time and his current social standing. < What if lunch takes long? Or I want an important doing on a day? >

Cristian snorts. < Do it on your own time. >

< Or holiday. > Raffi’s tone indicates she is clearly trying to hold the peace so Arthur doesn’t ask what that word means; just files it away for later and nods agreeably.

He’s apparently too late though, because Cristian is launching into a tirade somehow focussed around < holidays >, < sick days >, < money > and < tax >. Arthur just notes the words down and lets the rant wash over him. From the well-worn familiarity of Cristian’s words, this is not a battle Arthur needs to engage in.

Eventually Raffi settles him down. Arthur’s just about to hand one of Pedro’s beers over to them both when Pedro, eyes bright with mischief says, < Cristian? Don't tell Arthur about warehouse workers. Okay?>

*

Two days later, Arthur’s sitting in a chair, in what is evidently a receiving room, waiting for his audience. Besides him, Mister Patterson has long since ceased chattering on about < opportunity >. It's a good forty minutes past their allotted time.

Arthur, determined to be distracted, makes rough sketches on the back page of Ann’s workbook. It doesn’t seem terribly respectful to the honour she’s doing in educating them, but all of Arthur’s classmates seem to have defaced their documents similarly.

Arthur, unfortunately, is no draughtsman. He can capture the curve of Gwen’s cheek, but not the ordered curls of her braid. Can put his men in their armour, but leaves them looking more wooden than any dolls carved for a woodsman’s children.

Merlin, oddly, he seems to catch well enough. Oh, not in great precision, but the key points of his insubordinate smile, and the gangly length to his arms.

And _this_ is meant to have been the most powerful sorcerer of their generation?

Arthur can’t capture Merlin’s hands though, for all that he remembers them well. Has a hundred thousand memories of being touched by his servant. Merlin's hands hadn't always been careful. He ever seemed too much in a hurry - too focused on anything other than the current moment - for that. But there'd never been... malice... in Merlin.

The odd catch of skin in a buckle? The way Merlin's fingers sometimes snagged as he combed Arthur's hair prior to trimming it? The unsympathetic removal of clothing stuck down by blood? Being dragged, heavy handed and entirely irreverently, about?

It might not have been gentle, but-

Arthur had trusted his sincerity absolutely.

Apparently he'd been played for a fool.

Is it better to be a trusting fool or a bitter sceptic?

Arthur tries to sketch Merlin’s hands, but though he can even _feel_ the shape and the strength of them, when he tries to pin that down on paper, it all comes down wrong. The fingers look too rigid, maybe even malformed, like they’ve all been broken.

Just like that, he’s caught up in memories of that morning, with the robber. Of the man’s weight pressing him down and the _evil_ look in his eyes. Even now, Arthur’s not entirely certain whether the man had been after the money he could gain from selling Arthur’s rings or something rather more… twisted.

To be fair, Arthur hadn’t stopped to ask.

He’d closed his hand over the other man’s fist, lifting the knife from his throat. He can still remember the way that the other man’s eyes had gone wide. Like it hadn’t even crossed his mind that Arthur might simply be _that much_ stronger.

< Arthur? > There’s a note in Mister Paterson’s voice that indicates he’s been trying to catch Arthur’s attention for a while.

But he hasn’t tried to touch Arthur, unlike almost everyone else in the modern world. Arthur finds himself looking at the man and… wondering about that. < Yes? >

Mister Paterson gestures to Arthur’s dubiously accurate portraits. < Who are they? >

And Arthur, looking at thin renderings of people he thought he’d live and die besides - thought he’d never move beyond - is forced to say, < No one. >

*

After a delay of nearly an entire hour, Arthur and Mister Paterson are shown into a large office with many people all working on < computers >. The woman (a clerk or scholar?) whom they end up sitting opposite, hands Arthur a clipboard and paper. A little sign on her desk reads: _Ms Chou. Legal._

< Fill in your …, please. > She barely even looks over to him as she speaks.

After a moment of trying to remember where he left his pen, Ms Chou appears to notice and offers Arthur a pencil from her collection. Most of which look gnawed on. With some relief, Arthur produces his own pen from his pocket, trying not to look like he’s being rude.

Arthur looks at the paper.

< Do you want me- ? > Mister Paterson starts to offer, but Arthur shakes his head. The page isn’t long, and the prompts are ones that he’s beginning to get used to seeing: _Name, Date of Birth, Address._ There are various questions about contact information and, also, one that he dithers over his translation of: < Place of Birth >.

In the end, he puts ‘Wales’ down for that, remembering Officer MacAdam’s strange ramblings. After all, he may as well appear to be consistent.

For his date of birth, Arthur gives one as near to his own as he can guess from the current time’s strangely seasonally disjointed calendar. Calculates a year of birth by subtracting his age from the current one.

Looks at what he’s written as his name. _Arthur Penn._ It’s exactly what he’s given on every piece of paperwork so far.

Then he looks at the room around him. All those people in their < suits > acting in what can only be an official capacity. Tries to weigh the significance of blood tests and police officers and Mister Paterson’s presence.

Reminds himself that Arthur Pendragon is a myth to these people and-

He changes his form. Hands it over to the woman behind the desk before Mister Paterson can notice.

The woman doesn’t even blink as she begins to type.

*

In the end, Arthur is nearly two hours late to Cristian’s ‘little gathering’.

When he arrives, all the lights are on and he can hear music, faintly, from the street. It’s strange to knock on a locked door and yet be reasonably assured of gaining entry. Strange, but pleasant. Inside isn’t quite so busy as he’d expected from the light and the noise, but neither is it such a humble assembly as Cristian had indicated.

Arthur finds Cristian to wish him the best, then goes in search of Pedro, Raffi and their baby. It’s a choice that might prove to be a mistake as he spends the time it takes to drink a pint explaining that he can’t be a < barista > as he doesn’t like coffee, and he might struggled to work in a pub, when he has to ask everyone to repeat themselves half a dozen times even when they’re sober. He mentions the Soup Kitchen to illustrate that point, but it misfires somewhat.

< Volunteering’s a good ..., Arthur, but … need a job, > Raffi says, fervently. < ... some money, then ... and move out. >

Arthur had thought that the Thorn God's Hall _would_ count as working a job. He’s certainly learning useful skills, though admittedly there's no exchange of coin. Arthur wonders if she’s forgotten what Cristian said about Arthur not being _allowed_ to earn coin.

< Arthur, mate, get us … thanks? > Pedro finally cuts Raffi off before she can bring out her phone and start searching at the party. Arthur takes the graceful way out; leaving to refill all of their glasses.

He’s in the kitchen area, when Arthur hears someone come into the room behind him. Awareness trickles like ice-water down the back of his spine. Clearly that little incident in the Shelter has put him off more than it should have. Or maybe it’s just that he’s still not entirely certain it was about his rings. (What if he'd been sleeping more deeply? What if the odds hadn't been so even?)

The man behind him, when Arthur turns to look, is of medium height, stocky, and is most definitely not standing as if he is intending to be a threat. < Arthur, correct? > He offers one hand, meticulously scrubbed clean and nails trimmed short, though nothing can disguise the well worn skin and soft silvering of often scabbed and healed hands. < Florin. Cristian is my brother-in-law. >

His eyes appear to take in everything about Arthur’s appearance, busted knuckles included.

< Nice to meet you. > Arthur tries to think of something pleasant to say. Ends up with, < Nice party. >

Florin nods, neither appearing pleased nor putout, but instead calmly philosophical. < My wife. She is good at this. > Something in his manner reminds Arthur of the older merchants from the Lower Town; confident in their own meagre prosperity. 

He offers Arthur a plate of something white and frothy with cream. < It is good cake. >

< Thank you. > Arthur takes a piece and wonders if he can find a tray to move that and the three glasses back into the main room.

Arthur thinks that their conversation is done; for their stilted words lapse into silence. Florin picks up the bottles of wine one after another, checking for empty vessels, while Arthur liberates a tray from under some silverware.

It’s as Arthur’s about to go, that Florin nods to his hand. < You okay? >

Arthur looks at the damage there. Remembers his reaction that morning; when he’d decided to ensure that the thief wouldn’t have fingers quick enough to do much more snatching for the foreseeable future. Looks at Florin with his square shoulders and weather-beaten face and the possible offer in his words. Says firmly, < It’s finished. >

Florin nods in thoughtful consideration as he finishes picking up his empty bottles. < That is good. > And he opens the door to the outside, leaving Arthur to return to the party.

< Well, you certainly made an …, Arthur! > Cristian says later, when he finally works his way around to their small table. His face is slightly flushed for the wine. < Because my brother-in-law … says you … a bouncer. >

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m really sorry for vanishing. Things got a little too busy to easily focus. However, while distracted, I did end up writing a Camelot-era one-shot (Morgana POV), “Dragons and Doomsdays”, which I’d like to offer as an apology. It will be posted in an hour or so.
> 
> **Warning/Spoilers** : At the shelter, Arthur is attacked by his roommate, who has a knife. Arthur is not significantly hurt in this event. The attacker _is_ hurt (by Arthur) and forced to leave, but does not, unfortunately, face any legal consequences.
> 
> The motivation for the attack is (and will remain) unclear, with the most likely explanation being an attempted robbery. However Arthur does consider whether it could have been attempted rape. I’m not a fan of writing sexual violence, but with Arthur’s current living situation, I didn’t think that he _wouldn’t_ consider it a possible motivation for his attack.


	26. Part 3, Chapter 6: Change

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, in the interests of being fully honest, things (paperwork!) in this chapter get sorted out _a lot_ faster than they would in the real world.

Arthur doesn't realise that he's waiting for anything until it arrives.

Looking at the plastic-and-embossed-gilding rectangle in his hand, he wonders what to do with it. It’s a question he asks Ann when he sees her at the Soup Kitchen.

They’re meant to be cleaning the windows, but Ann takes a moment to be distracted. < That? It's a bank card. May I? > And she takes it and its associated letter from his hands. < It looks like someone’s filed some benefits for you. >

Which then means that she has to explain the modern alms system to Arthur. He feels himself flush. It’s not like he needs people’s charity any more than _he’s already beholden_. He has _enough_.

Ann tells him he’s being < silly >. < I’m sure you … paid your way … before all this … > finishing up her explanation with something about getting on his feet, even though they’re both already standing.

The bank card is followed a few days later by a folded piece of paper. It has his name on it – his actual name, as he spelt it to Ms Chou, Legal, not the make-do abbreviation he’d taken up – and a lot of text in characters elaborate enough to have put Geoffrey to shame. While Arthur’s far from certain what the paper is for, it seems apparent that it should go in Ginger’s locked red box for safekeeping.

The final bit of modern paperwork Arthur receives is a little booklet with a golden crest on the front and lots of elaborately illuminated but otherwise blank pages. At one end, there is a shiny page with, among other things, his photograph. It’s actually not a bad likeness, though Arthur can’t remember when it was taken. Ann calls _that_ document a < passport >; telling him he’s very lucky he’s received it as quickly as he has, and also that he needs to keep it safe. < It’s how you show you can live here. >

Arthur had thought that was what the Emergency Documentation was for. Evidently not.

*

He tells Ginger about the passport that evening while they talk on the phone. In the background he can hear the clanging of pans and Helen telling Timothy to turn something down. What Arthur doesn’t tell Ginger is that he’s changed his name (back). It’s dishonest of him, but he’s not certain how she’ll react.

Maybe he shouldn’t over think things for, when he mentions looking for employment (with time-bound hours), Ginger seems happy for him, just as she ever does. Indeed, after they < ring off > she inundates his mobile with more links than he can quickly skim in a single evening. Web-comics and simplified text relating to Employment Law are, apparently, very easy to come by.

Arthur supposes that makes a certain kind of sense. Poorly educated workers need to know their rights and duties just as much as their bosses do. He’s just surprised that someone has taken such care over those people. Especially when, with the general level of literacy he sees in the modern population, the audience for such documents must be relatively limited.

It’s the type of thing the Gwen would have liked.

*

Needless to say, his work status comes up in class.

< That’s fantastic! > Pedro grins. Of course he’s pleased; it’s news he’ll be happy to pass on to Raffi.

Ann asks Arthur to note down how he feels about the change. But when Arthur tries to pin it down, all he can remember is Raffi’s worried eyes, haunted by the idea of Arthur _living_ where Williams died. It’s as if she’s expecting the man’s very ghost to come for her friend.

Arthur sketches a quick outline of a Dorocha, then superstitiously adds a ring of red-inked flames around it. People have died in almost every location Arthur's ever visited. In his experience (and in the absence of magic), it’s invariably the living, not the dead, who cause the trouble.

< Maybe sell art, > Pedro says, surely just to see Arthur roll his eyes at the idiocy.

< Or I could be a rich boss’s chef, > Arthur retorts just to see the man laugh. Starts to make a quick outline of a peeled potato, but potatoes are even duller to draw than to prepare for the pot, so he stops. Turns the roundness of it into a woman’s face. A few quick lines transform the coiling peel into hair, scattered wild about her.

It’s the woman from the rainstorm. She looks drowned.

< I don’t think your … of experience will … > Pedro doesn’t seem to notice the sudden determination with which Arthur crosses his ‘art’ out. < … But, I'll ask ... > Pedro offers. < See if anyone... >

*

< Arthur? Got a free moment? > Despite Pedro’s words, it’s Cristian who corners Arthur after their next game in the park.

Arthur, currently trying to shake some of the sweat out of his hair, gives Cristian a funny look. These days it seems like he has nothing _but_ free moments.

< Look. > Cristian seems strangely uncertain; defensive in all the ways that he swears that he’s not when he’s in Ann’s class. < I might be wrong but, well, you’re no more a city boy than me. Right? >

Arthur doesn’t think that Cristian’s looking for a correction on the boy/man part of that statement, so he nods even though it’s not entirely correct. Back in the < Middle Ages >, Arthur had very much been a < city boy >. It’s just that cities have grown somewhat since then.

< What do you think about farming? >

*

Mister Paterson, when Arthur mentioned the possible employment, was clearly worried. He asked for Cristian’s number; phoning there and then to ask a surprisingly insistent number of questions. Only when his phone pinged, indicating the receipt of a number of photos of (what else?) paperwork, did he seem to settle.

Flicking from one image to another, he had started to nod. < Looks legitimate, > he’d muttered and then, more clearly intending to be heard by Arthur, < Someone from the E.I. course, you say? >

Arthur did say; had, in fact, said. Several times.

He said it again.

Mister Paterson nodded. < Well, let me know how …, okay? >

That was on Wednesday. It’s Friday evening now, and Arthur’s back at Cristian’s sister’s bakery, meeting with Florin. Florin, who apparently acts as overseer to a large group of farmworkers who travel across the country from farm to farm. Arthur’s well aware of individual itinerant labourers; they’d trudged their way about his kingdom looking to earn coin. He’d never considered they could evolve into such a large migratory force.

He’s had some time to get used to the idea since Cristian first raised it.

In contrast to everything Cristian has ever said about work, the hours Florin describes seem to be variable. The living conditions appear closer than those of the Shelter. But it’s a way to escape charity, and there’s little need for a detailed grasp of the modernity when tilling the land. At least, not as Arthur understands it.

Their conversation seems to be going well, until the inevitable questions about his past arise.

Arthur pauses. Wonders what the safe answer is. Falls back on: < I hit my head. >

< So Cristian says. > It sounds like an agreement; Arthur can hear the question lingering behind it. Maybe Cristian’s mentioned Arthur’s wife and his dead father; more likely Florin’s wary of bringing a stranger into his group, especially one keeping unfathomed secrets.

Arthur sighs. Decides that he’s not going to copy Merlin’s mistakes. < I wake. Now I think I be King Arthur. Camelot. >

Florin’s eyebrow raises, but he doesn’t run away. < That is quite a thing. > Every word is issued with slow determination; pacing out the uncertainty between them.

But Florin’s not wrong. To wake up _knowing_ he’s fifteen hundred years into the future _is_ quite a thing. Arthur shrugs. < It is. >

Florin nods, just the once. Considers Arthur. Decides:

< Can a king do hard manual labour? >

Arthur thinks of long days riding on little food, of training even when the bruises added up, and of battle; death. When he grins, he can’t keep the flash of bared teeth from it. < Yes. >


	27. Interlude: Elfrida

It starts with a fight.

Elfrida has _never_ been in a fight. Not a proper one, with fists and violence and no parents to run to. She’d probably been all of ten when she and Edward had taken a careful look at the punishments for their actions and decided that hair pulling and play-nipping simply weren’t worth winding their parents up over.

“Stop standing there!” A hand catches in the fold of her elbow, dragging her back, away from it all. “Come on!”

And so there _is_ running, too. Which is another thing Elfrida had thought she’d outgrown. Walking? Yes, walking is fine. She can hike for miles. But beating her feet against a pavement? Hurtling herself around the building corners, and bins, and tumbledown, half-height, brick boundary walls of Liverpool?

She gets a stitch.

Really, she’s just surprised she didn’t get one earlier.

“I… I can’t…” and she folds, gasping, over her aching side.

It sounds – Elfrida _knows_ that it sounds – like what she can’t do is run. But that’s not what she can’t do. Rather, she can’t chaise this strange, lean, middle-aged man, who she’s just watched beat two other men bloody, and carry on going on _trust_. How on Earth is she meant to trust someone she’s only just met?

He’s half a dozen houses ahead of her now, looking back at her, down a street she doesn’t even know the name of, like she’s behaving irrationally. “Come on!”

Elfrida knows what irrational is. It’s not this.

“Where-?” A gasp for air. “A’ we goin’?” Another gasp.

She’s angling for an address, a name, _something_ beyond Analise’s frantic hello-and-goodbye hug-and-crumpled-note hand-over when she’d invited Elfrida to a coffeeshop miles away from her own. The note had read, _Lime Street Station, coffee kiosk, wear a scarf (glittery)_ , alongside a data and time.

Elfrida doesn’t even _own_ anything glittery. She’d rummaged through Mari’s side of the wardrobe in desperation, before working through her wife’s chest of drawers. The scarfs had been in the bottom one and, underneath them, a handful of faded tickets and wine corks and cut up bits of ribbons from gifts long since exchanged; the detritus of a hopelessly romantic memento-gatherer.

When Elfrida had drawn forth a shawl, patterned with blue-sky-and-glittering-stars, a tiny paper rose tumbled free. It was the type that might top a cake and Elfrida, startled, had realised that she recognised it: years earlier it had adorned one of the cupcakes they’d bought in Edinburgh; their first holiday together.

“ _You’re_ the one who contacted us. So, I’d say your question isn’t worth very much, is it?” It’s the man’s words that pull her back to the moment.

She looks at him - his chest heaving almost as much as hers, face flushed from exertion - and realises that she’s not going to get anything further from him. That this is all the knowledge she’ll ever have as she makes her choice: to follow blindly, or turn back.

If Analise’s actions, in sending her here, results in Elfrida being murdered, she’ll never forgive herself.

Tugging at the fabric snarled tight around her throat, Elfrida tries to prepare for yet more running. “Lead on.”

*

They end up in a small basement flat; one of many divided out of what had once clearly been home to a large family with money. Or, at any rate, a family with large money. It’s a beautiful building made when Liverpool had been a port known throughout the world, made rich in part by the sale of people as commodities. Though it’s clear that any money the area might once have held is long gone, the families most likely likewise, Elfrida wonders if that history bothers the woman who opens the door.

“Welcome.” But then the woman’s smile melts away leaving behind a frown. “You look-” And her eyes flicker from Elfrida to the man and back again. “Whatever happened?”

“Leaving us on the doorstep?” He jokes, for she’s already opening the door wider to beckon them closer.

“Of course not! Come in, do come in. Tea?”

“Thank you,” Elfrida replies on autopilot. “With milk, please.”

There’s a set of coathooks in the narrow hallway and the man is hanging up his light summer jacket. Confused, Elfrida copies him; shedding her cardigan, though she keeps her backpack and Mari’s scarf. “There was a spot of bother at the station. Just some of the Callies.”

“Callies?” Elfrida asks, and then, when they both look at her, “I _am_ here for answers.”

“True,” the woman says, moving further into the flat, “but let’s get you sat down first.”

The kitchen-living area is warm and cosy. Large windows look into light pits filled with plants. There are overstuffed sofas, rugs, bookcases with as many crystals as tomes, vibrant colour schemes… It reminds Elfrida sharply of how Analise’s home had been, back before its unexpected reinvention.

Hesitating before sitting, Elfrida starts to say, “I think that you know a friend of mine, A-”

“We’re not really a names type of place,” the man cuts in. “Not entirely safe.”

“Ah.” All her life spent, wanting to not look bad for forgetting everyone’s names. Yet now that everyone would prefer her forgetful, Elfrida craves some actual certainty. “What should I call you then?”

He grins. “You may as well call me Ringo. And, sit, why don’t you?”

_Apple,_ Elfrida’s mind helpfully translates, before she can remind it that he’s more likely thinking of the Beatle.

“I’ll go by Cilla,” the woman offers while she starts laying out steaming mugs.

Elfrida, because she’s never been good at this type of thing, and also because if they’re all lying, then what does it matter, says, “You can call me Seven.”

“That’s a nice river,” Cilla offers.

“Naw. She’s just Borg.” And, even with Ringo’s derision, that would have been a _good_ reason to choose the name. Instead it’s just the number of minutes past the hour on the clock behind them.

“I was told you could help me.” The look they exchange is… something. Giving up on understanding that, Elfrida instead runs through her question again. Realises that maybe she should specify. “Not help me, as in get me out of trouble. But help me with some information. About the people who are being taken.”

“That,” Ringo is no longer smiling, “would be the very definition of helping you with trouble.”

“They took my wife.” Not long ago, that would have been a calculated gamble; even now there are still people around who are staggeringly homophobic. But she’s out of patience and isn’t in the mood.

“Then I am sorry for your loss.” Ringo sounds like he means it. “But you are never seeing her again.”

“I know that.” Though the sudden ache in her side indicates that maybe she hadn’t accepted it. “But I need her body.” Flesh, bones: it’s none of it anything that lasts, not really. And Elfrida has never been sentimental. But this she knows, down to the soles of her feet, that she would fight and kill and burn just to hold that which Mari no longer even needs. To know where it lies and so how Mari was ended.

Ringo looks at Cilla, and Cilla looks back. Elfrida wishes with everything she has that _they would just use their words._

It’s Cilla who tries. “You probably won’t even get that, dear. They’re people who- Well. They’re thorough.”

_No_ , Elfrida wants to say. _I’m_ thorough. Precise, determined, focussed: everything needed to excel in her work. “ _And I want the truth._ ”

“Do you?”

It’s clearly spoken with the intent of recalling her to her senses. A lifetime of being herself has left Elfrida maybe a little too sensitive to such kindly meant social nudges. But there’s a vast difference between speaking somewhat out of turn, and being told to accept that she’s now… what? Abandoned? A widow?

“Who took her?”

Another long pause, with lots of meaningful intensity exchanged and the clock ticking away.

“Seriously. Stop trying to stop me. I don’t care about the consequences; I _need_ to know.”

Cilla sighs, and gestures to the mugs. “Pick one, so I can take another, Seven. Because for this I need some tea.”

It hadn’t even crossed Elfrida’s mind that the drinks might have been drugged. It should have. This entire situation is clearly starting to get to her common sense.

Which just means she needs to resolve it sooner.

Elfrida takes a tall, slim mug decorated with astrology symbols and acknowledges that, if _she_ wanted to drug someone, she’s dose all the mugs and just drink the antidote. There’s nothing stopping Cilla from acting likewise.

Then acknowledges that, if she _really does_ think that there’s some sort of gang-warfare-conspiracy-cult thing going on, and that these people can tell her more about it, then trusting their honesty in brewing is the least of her leaps in faith.

She takes a sip made quick more because of the temperature than her doubts. The tea’s actually been very nicely made.

Cilla’s mug has dancing kittens in tutus. Her fingers curl around the bulk as if she’s cold, though other than that she seems at ease. “The people you are worried about are the Inquisition. They hunt witches.”

Whatever Elfrida had been expecting to hear, this isn’t it. “The Inquisition? Like the Spanish Inquisition?” Inappropriately, in the way that only nerves can leave her, she flashes back to old movie reruns, watched curled up under a blanket with Mari. _No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!_

Cilla purses her lips. “Yes and no. There’s some history there. But as far as you need to know, the Callies are trouble. They have connections. They-” And she goes on to outline the type of conspiracy that Elfrida wants to call mad.

Except that Mari’s missing, and the police have found nothing.

Lots of missing people are never found, the rational part of Elfrida’s mind says. One hundred and eighty thousand to two hundred and fifty thousand missing people every year in the UK. Ninety-seven percent found, one way or another, in a week. One in a hundred still unaccounted for, over a year later. They can’t _all_ be to do with this.

What she _says_ is, “But there are no witches.”

This time, when Ringo and Cilla exchange a glance, Elfrida doesn’t need a translation. It’s a look she’s seen Mari and Analise share many a time.

What _Cilla_ says, voice careful with diplomacy, is, “Well, maybe you’re right and maybe you’re wrong. I know what _I_ can do, and I know what my own eyes have seen. But, for the sake of argument, let’s just agree that what matters here is what _they_ believe.”

“This Inquisition.” And then, following up on that earlier niggling question. “Callies?”

It’s Ringo who takes up this question. “Callies’s short for calamari. You know? Squid. Which have ink. Which is what we used to call _them_ back before they got better at noticing that.”

“Oh.” It all seems rather convoluted to Elfrida. Why not just give them a randomly assigned codename?

“It was the children.” Cilla says. “You know how they can get with their word games.”

“There are children?” Here? Involved in all this danger?

Cilla laughs. “There are always children.”

Which sounds dreadful. “Were they any of the ones taken?” And then, because the question won’t go away, “ _Why_ are they taken?”

“Because magic’s evil.” Ringo rolls his eyes. “Obviously.”

“Well,” Cilla sighs, “It _has_ been used for evil. Rather a lot.”

“That’s just people being people, though. Not magic itself.”

“And then there’s the other bits. The creatures and places and, well, it’s not unexpected that people are afraid.”

Ringo snorts.

And Elfrida’s startled to realise that it’s now _she_ and Cilla who are exchanging a ‘look’. (It’s been years since she’s done so with anyone who’s not family.)

“Oh, aye.” Cilla sighs. “Big, strong man like you. There’s nothing in the whole wide world for you to fear.”

“Well,” Ringo says, clearly well aware that he’s being judged. “There’s the Callies. They’re not nice.” When he looks at Elfrida, his face is very stern. “Which is why you should stay out of this. You have your answers. Closure, or whatever it is that you call what you want. Now you need to put it all behind you and leave.”

Leave? With just this?

It’s shear bloody-minded desperation that has her asking, “Can’t you-” she wants to pause or make a face; something to show how ridiculous she finds this whole thing. But she’s desperate, and she knows the correct words. Elfrida makes herself finish without hesitation “-scry for them? With your crystals?”

In the back of her mind, Elfrida knows that there’ll be an excuse. There always is when it comes to demonstrating, in a well-defined and measurable manner, mysticisms.

Cilla doesn’t disappoint. “They don’t work like they used to.”

Ringo snorts. “They never worked.” Elfrida doesn’t let herself fall into the logical fallacy of being irritated that she agrees with him.

“Of course, they did.” Cilla replies calmly. One hand reaches out to rest gently on one of the large stones, brushing over it as if removing dust from an object that has clearly been too well loved to ever suffer such an indignity. “But magic wore thin, and now when the stone tries to rest on it’s weave it just tears through.”

_Like me in a social situation; snarling up the chit-chat._ Elfrida does not say this.

“Besides, those ones wouldn’t have helped with scrying anyway.”

“Why not? What did they allegedly do?” It’s the type of question that Analise would at least put up with.

“Glow a bit,” Ringo says.

“This one was used in healing,” Cilla corrects. “And once was very powerful, but no more. And that one used to help it to rain.”

_Help rain?_ In the north-west? The reverse would be more spectacular.

“So it’s like a machine, then? Running on a depleted battery?”

Cilla pulls a face, but whether that’s at Elfrida’s analogy or for some other reason, Elfrida wouldn’t like to hazard a guess. “Magic isn’t a battery. It’s magic.” On the balance of things, it’s probably her analogy that resulted in that expression.

“There must be _something_.”

“I’m very sorry, Seven.” Cilla says, putting down her mug so that she can look Elfrida straight in the eye, far too intently. “We don’t have those types of powers now.”

Elfrida’s so focussed on trying to decide how best to bow out of Cilla’s stare-off that she actually jumps a little when Ringo, unexpectedly, chimes in.

“But there _is_ the undying-man.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The missing persons’ stats come from the Liverpool Echo (2016) and the charity “Missing People”. I looked them up on a whim and was shocked there were so many.


	28. Interlude: Merlin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for description of torture/interrogation. (Set at a similar level to the TV show.)

Sometimes Merlin thinks he hears crying, although maybe that’s just in his mind. The walls to his cell are thick and boredom has been an ever-present companion of late. Not that he’s entirely certain how sane he was even before arriving.

It’s the boredom that spices every opening of his cell door with fascination, offsetting his dread. This time’s no exception, though changes in routine are never for the better in _this_ place.

It’s just that it’s been such a _very_ long time…

Light floods into the room and, though tear-blurred eyes, Merlin can make out backlit shadows. He blinks frantically, desperate to clear his vision before a hasty retreat can steal away his chance to _see_.

To Merlin’s surprise (to his trepidation), he hears two sets of steps drawing near. One pair heavy and certain; the other light and faltering, maybe injured.

Then, as his eyes start to adjust, Merlin’s stimulation-starved mind drinks it all in. The fabric style. The footwear. The new model of handcuffs in use.

A strangely disconcerting lack of hair wax.

And the people. Obviously.

There are two of them, now, in Merlin’s cell. His ears had been correct in _that_ deduction, at least. A European man and an Eastern woman; the latter prisoner to the former.

“You’ve been here a while, girlie.” The man – evidently a gaoler, though the uniform’s changed since Merlin last saw one – appears more focussed in the woman whose arm he holds fast than in Merlin himself. “And we’ve been good to you so far. Kind. Patient. But maybe it’s time that you understood what _can_ happen to people who aren’t good back.

“I mean,” the man smiles, “he’s quite a sight isn’t he? And-” here he puts his mouth to the woman’s ear; his voice falling to a whisper that none-the-less carries, “-he’s a damn sight stronger than you are.” The woman doesn’t so much as flinch or shiver, though a single tear seeps from her eye. The expression in her face when she looks at Merlin is-

When Merlin was young, Old Man Simmons had caught him 'helping' to clear away fallen damsons. The old man had made threats; apparently if Merlin was going to act like a pig, rooting for leftovers among the mud and fallen leaves, then he could be locked in the sty with the rest of his ilk.

Of course, none of that came to pass. Hunith, drawn by an uncanny knack for always expecting her boy to be the one at the centre of any trouble, had appeared. She'd given Merlin a firm clip to his ear for not asking before taking; and given the farmer a no-less-firm verbal clip for assuming it was _his_ place to discipline _her_ child.

Yet even at his worst, Old Man Simmons would have drawn the line at something like the Merlin’s current confinement.

That’s not empty conjecture.

Once (when Merlin had been dragged along as extra muscle on an expedition to Cenred's castle) and only once, had the two of them travelled together. Merlin can still remember the expression in the old man's eyes as he'd looked at the heads on their spikes around Cenred’s walls. That revulsion, which went far beyond the stench of rotting flesh, as their little party had passed below the forgotten ones, swinging in their gibbet cages.

Honestly, that bit of shared sympathy had made Merlin feel even _more_ guilty when he accidentally caused that tree to near fall on Simmons.

That was then.

Now, as Merlin watches horror fill the young woman's face he... actually feels worse for her (for Simmons) than he can manage to feel for himself. Of course, the fact that she's _here_ , would be enough for Merlin to have sympathy with _anyone_.

"Oh. Where are my manners? Hello, Emrys."

Merlin smiles. Expects that smile to look droll, though he's beginning to forget how that feels from the inside. "Alas that you've yet to introduce yourself to me, sir."

'Sir' never hurts. It's been a reasonable catch-all ever since 'my lord' fell out of common usage.

If Merlin were hoping for a name - he isn't - then he’s in for a disappointment. For his captor (a man in uniform who quite possibly doesn't realise just how much his clothing gives away about him; about the whole world outside) has already turned away. Focusses on the woman who is the purpose for his visit here today.

No. Merlin’s apparently just a backdrop to their moment.

It's a relief. As much as Merlin knows he needs to wait out his vigil _somewhere_ , he’d much rather that time passes as much without actual pain as possible.

“Why don’t you say ‘hello’, girlie?”

She does so. When she speaks, her voice is worn thin and her English, though perfect in delivery, bears an accent indicating either a significant tonal shift across the British Isles, or that she originally grew up in a distant land. As their captor doesn’t share that accent, Merlin hopes she’s travelled far. If not, he’s been moved without realising it in one of his more… confused… moments.

And what if he’s halfway around the world when Arthur returns? It could take him _weeks_ to obtain passage back to Avalon. That’s even assuming that he _can_ overwhelm the constraints around him. It’s been a while since he tried in earnestness and-

It’s been fourteen hundred years, give or take, since _that day_. Centuries without a single omen. A little more time more while he figures out his current predicament can’t hurt.

Besides, the captive woman is fascinating; even richer with clues about her than the man. She's wearing sandals with fine machine-made stitching. A lingering flash of colour on some of her nails indicates a form of enduring artistic lacquering. Holes in her ears must once have been adorned with jewellery.

She seems human; at least in so far as his iron-bound senses (namely, his eyes) can tell. A sorceress?

“Tell me what you know about the resistance.”

She jumps, but otherwise remains silent. Merlin wonders what resistance they’re discussing. Is Mahatma Ghandi stirring up dissidence again? It doesn't fit. The woman looks like she hails from further to the east than that and, furthermore, the guards’ interest normally slants more to the mystical than modern-day politics.

Unless, of course, alternative allegiances have been made. But what possible benefit could that bring either party?

“Do you know what harm they could cause? They’re not good people. You shouldn’t align yourself with them.” The man’s clearly experienced in drawing information forth: pausing to let his captive linger on his words; leaving her doubts space to climb. Except that, with the ragged disrepair of previously good quality clothing, she looks like she’s been here for some time now. And, if she’s been dragged down to see _him_ , then clearly they’re running out of ideas for her interrogations.

So, when he adds, “Do you know what will happen if they’re allowed to continue? Do you know the harm that could be unleased?” Merlin’s not surprised she keeps her mouth shut.

He wonders when their captors are planning to move on to their more permanent options with her. After all, she’s still got all of her fingers; all of her toes. Her skin is marred only by the small bruises of rough handling, rather than the active infliction of pain.

Just when did the Inquisition turn so tender?

“Or, do you just not care? Is that it? Is the promise of power so great that you’re willing to see dreadful things happen, so long as they happen to someone else?”

Merlin wonders how long the guard’s planning to waste his breath. Is it irreverent to hope that he takes his time? That maybe he will call for tea, even if only for his own parched throat?

Goddess, but it’s been ages since Merlin even _smelt_ a cup of tea!

It’s all that thinking about India that’s set him off! Merlin’s wanted to see the region ever since… Well, it began with Nikolas’s correspondence on tea, although _that_ had been in a time when it was a tonic prepared with leaves from China.

Wouldn’t it be wonder to break out and find himself surrounded by plantations? Tea, perfect and fragrant, as far as the eye could see?

“Well, there’s no power for you here, girl.”

For a moment, it’s actually hard to remember what’s going on around him. Merlin blinks, trying to refocus. Really, he _should_ be finding the proceedings more interesting. It’s just that he’s gotten rather out of the habit of listening.

Arthur, naturally, would say that he’s never been _in_ the habit. Then he’d look angry, or maybe disappointed, which had never been all that fair when Merlin had usually been distracted by trying to save him and-

But sometimes Arthur said it fondly. There’d be a certain light in his face and-

Merlin had been too stupid to put the pieces of _that_ puzzle together until much, _much_ , too late.

Like always.

“You really should start to talk. I don’t like to say, _or else_ , but,” There’s the click of a switch; a rod in the man’s hand. Something sparks, though it's hard for Merlin to distinguish in the washed-out brilliance of the cell. “Why don’t you just watch for now?”

Normally the chill of the air against Merlin’s skin is one of the few things that convinces him he still has skin; that he's still a being at all, even if he's held with more disgrace than one would show a dog. But, in this moment, Merlin knows absolutely that he’s still real.

For where that rod touches Merlin’s skin, he _burns_.

He thinks that he screams. He certainly tries to.

“Stop it!” She has a strong voice when she shouts, Merlin decides. It’s a good quality in a person. Helpful in a crisis. Good for summoning aid.

Somehow, in this moment of white-hot focus, this one thought seems very important.

“Tell me something useful.”

“I don’t know anything!” There are tears in her voice. Really, her reaction seems like overkill. Merlin's only in pain; brief and transient. “Please. I keep _telling_ you.”

“Do you want me to do this to your friends? To you? Talk, witch!”

Oh. So she’s a magic user. Well, that explains a lot about the way she’s being treated. For it seems to be fundamental to human nature: being scared of what they do not know; unwilling to look and learn and embrace.

There have been so many times that Merlin's been convinced humanity is asking for a reckoning. That they're monsters of the direst type and utterly irredeemable. With every century and every conflict, they found ever more challenging methods of outdoing themselves in brutality and mass destruction.

And then, every time, he’ll remember Arthur. Knows that people make the wrong choices with the best of intentions. (Remembers Mordred and all of his own missed opportunities.)

“Your friends know. So you must know.”

Somewhere far beyond anything much that matters, the two visitors are talking backwards and forwards. Questions and fearful bemusement. They talk about magic and organisations and a hundred other things which Merlin can barely focus on. His magic, wound up and tied close within his flesh starts to stitch up the harm done him. It won’t linger for long. Yet, while the wounds remain, the pain is…

It’s only pain.

He’s survived worse. Is doomed to do so indefinitely until-

For a moment, just here and on the edge of pained delirium, he can see clearly Arthur’s face once more. The twist of his smile. The sun in his hair. Beauty. Strength. Perfection.

And he’ll be _back_. One day. With Merlin.

When Arthur returns; when the threads of destiny coil around them, and the strange hazing dreams of futuristic vehicles and shabby clothing that have clogged Merlin’s fogged mind since... that incident with the relic and the mystic in the abbey of… wherever it was. When all of _that_ makes sense, then-

When he can fall to his knees and be to his king everything that he should always have been-

“Aw. Look. We’ve made him cry.” The man’s smiling at Merlin, viciously delighted. The woman’s arched uncomfortably; her neck and jaw held in a cruel grip. “But, spoiler, that’s not for _you_ , girl. We’ve tried that in the past; he just doesn’t care about anything real _these_ days. One day you’ll be like that, too.” ‘Unless’ hangs unspoken in the air.

She sobs. Merlin wishes he could tell her that it will all be alright. But, truthfully, she’ll probably be gone and forgotten long before Arthur’s return.

That seems like it should make him sad.

“There’s not much point in feeding collaborators who have no use.” There’s a smile growing on the man’s face, slow but not warm. “Liars, on the other hand? Those we feed, and those we question.”

The woman’s eyes flicker back to Merlin.

“Go on, girlie. Tell me _something_. I don’t mind what. Tell me who your first kiss was. Tell me your favourite spell or pizza topping. It’s all the same to me. We can start small.”

“We could start with tea,” Merlin offers, because it’s worth trying. He’s soundly ignored.

“Or large. We could go big. Tell me about the undying man.”

About _him_? For a moment Merlin’s confused. For the woman can know nothing much about Merlin; she’s far too young.

And then, when he realises, he’s only glad that they’ve stopped paying him any mind, being far too caught up in their own poisoned mind-games.

For there’s only one free person their gaoler can mean.

Leon.


	29. Part 4, Chapter 1:  The Farm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At this point all speech-marks change. Apologies for any confusion; I should probably have planned this out more in advance!
> 
> “Modern English” now looks like this.
> 
> „Modern non-English language phrases which Arthur can understand‟ look like this; the exact language you’ll have to guess from context, I’m afraid. I’m already pushing my luck with HTML symbols here.
> 
> As for good old Camelot British? 「We’ll use these angle brackets.」
> 
> Now, here’s hoping that these all render correctly!

Arthur’s first impression of the farm is… less than flattering. Although his disappointment comes not at all in the way that he’s been expecting.

The thing is, Arthur _knows_ about farms. Oh, lazy day-dreaming aside, he knows very little about _living_ on a farm. That said, he’s inspected them, advised on them, taken note of yearly harvests and the ever-present impacts of variable rain patterns, bandit motions and blight.

Then there’s the fact that he’s been out-of-doors most of his life. His father hadn’t exactly held much tolerance for a sedentary lifestyle.

So, while Arthur _had_ been expecting mud and dilapidation and grinding poverty, he’d also been looking forward to… Well. To being in an outside that isn’t fenced in by concrete and brick and hollering humanity.

He’d been hoping to see trees.

And he does. It’s just that… Maybe it’s the roads that he and the rest of Florin's group are traveling along, making the trees seem... lesser. Perhaps it's the vans or the quietly relaxed people. There’s sixteen of them in total, split between a two vans with axles low enough that Arthur had held genuine concerns as to how they’d cope with rugged country topography.

Fifteen centuries, apparently, makes a vast change to _everything_ , even such ‘wilderness’ as remains.

For roads of varying sizes cross-cross back and forth. Even this so-called ‘narrow driveway’ that they’ve ended up on, with its jolting potholes and ‘untarmacked’ surface, is better finished than the main route leading into Camelot. For a starter, the large concrete slabs it’s formed from look remarkably resistant to mud. Then there’s the lack of large trees on either side that could, by falling, block the way. (And hadn’t that been a perfectly awkward afternoon; with the orchard owner’s cart stuck behind the downed-oak, while half of the kingdom was assembling, readying for the harvest festival?)

The countryside is no less manicured than the roads or, before that, the city’s parks.

Part of Arthur grieves that loss, for all that it must be safer and altogether more pleasant for those that live provincially.

The farm itself consists of a brick building which faces painted metal barns of sufficient dimension to stable dragons. On one side of the driveway, fields stretch into the distance, just barely interrupted by the meanest of hedgerows; while to the other side, strange tent-like structures of taunt plastic stretch back far enough that, had Arthur not seen them, he could have found the reports unbelievable.

“Everyone out.” Florin turns off the engine, then steps out of his door. By the time Arthur’s shuffled his way up through the van and out the other door, Florin’s already vanished into the main farm building. It looks like someone’s home, though there’s a sign reading ‘office’ on the front door.

Arthur wonders if he should follow, but everyone else is lingering by the van and, besides, his bag is on-board. Though it’s impolite to be sceptical, still Arthur feels a certain fission of distrust. He tells himself to put it aside. That Cristian must have meant well, and that Mister Paterson had seemed persuaded of the honesty of the work.

Yet Arthur cannot help but recall that man in the Shelter, and doubt.

Not that he should let such a person set his expectations for the future. Take Mister Paterson, for example, who had been more helpful than Arthur had anticipated. He’d taken Arthur to a clothes shop (not the same one that Sal had frequented; nor one that sold that type of garment) to collect gear of a heavier nature. Also boots. Arthur had tried to pay with his bankcard and the benefits within, but Mister Paterson had refused; something about a ‘support grant’.

Of course, that had been the pleasant side to leaving the city. That, and putting an end to the ever-changing faces he’s shared a room with now.

Saying farewell to Pedro and Raffi? Cristian? To Ann and Will and Art? To Missus Moore, and Fatima with her regime of soup and stew making? That had been rather bitterer. That the front page of Melanie’s book has filled with more names and addresses seems to only slightly offset Arthur’s loneliness.

Arthur tries to remember what Ann would have said. To acknowledge the feeling, then deal with the moment. The moment is peaceful. A pair of pigeons pass overhead, while in the distance Arthur can still hear the hum of traffic.

When Florin returns, he gestures for everyone to collect their things. Arthur’s bag from the hospital is now fuller, but still easy enough to carry over one shoulder. The same cannot be said for a young woman fighting with a large case on wheels.

“The caravans are over there,” Florin says, leading the way past the farmyard and up a narrow gravel track. The woman ahead of Arthur is still struggling with her case; her friend’s attempts to offer aid are hindered by her own burdens.

“Can I helping?” Arthur offers, when it’s apparent that no one else will.

There’s a quick back and forth between the women, words made strange until Arthur realises that they’re not speaking English, and then the woman smiles. “Thank you.”

It’s not a heavy case, though doubtless if Merlin had been here to carry it he’d have complained. Though perhaps it’s more than a woman should be burdened with. And, in the end, Arthur doesn’t have to bare it so very far, for they are quickly at a series of small white ‘houses’ raised up on metal legs and – when Arthur looks beyond the tall grass growing there – wheels.

Florin calls the two woman away, pairing them up with somewhat older woman, before sending the three to the house nearest the path. Florin works his way down a list, grouping up the remaining people, all, Arthur notices, men.

Arthur is granted access to ‘Caravan Three’ along with two others of his approximate age; Andrei and Mihai.

The house is… not bad. Dry. Somewhat cramped. There’s a small kitchen area, but the toilets and showers are, as Arthur’s becoming used to in the modern world, in a communal area. On this farm, that means outside in a concrete block. There’s a little confusion over the bedrooms (there are two; a small room with one bed, and a larger room with ‘bunks’) which is resolved by Mihai not even asking forgiveness before he closes the door to the smaller room behind him.

“He doesn’t speak English,” Andrei says philosophically, although that doesn’t explain why Mihai wouldn’t want to share with _Andrei_. “Top bunk or bottom?”

*

Life at the farm is not a difficult routine to fall into.

Arthur’s work involves collecting summer fruits and putting them into ‘punnets’. The fruit is grown strangely, in long ‘polytunnels’ that cover acres of land, in troughs of soil raised up on benches. Still, it is an arrangement that keeps the task easy on Arthur’s back, minimising the time he spends moving up and down so that he can collect the fruit easily. He’s slow, but gets faster. It’s especially easy with the strawberries, which just seem to ripen and fall into Arthur’s passing hand.

Every late afternoon, Arthur heads to the showers. The water in the communal area rarely runs hot, but that's not a problem. Summer’s heat lingers into the early autumn days and, regardless, Arthur’s bathed in colder water many a time.

After work and after showering, there’s time to cook. It’s a task that Mihai and Andrei seem to have decided to put on a rota until it’s Arthur’s first turn and then Andrei takes him firmly to one side and explains about ‘seasoning’ and also that, if Arthur’s not careful, he’s going to end up stuck on washing up duty.

Washing up duty doesn’t seem too arduous even if Andrei does seem determined to use every mismatched pan in the caravan each night. Despite that, Arthur’s careful to watch his new roommates, and to copy.

Meals are not the only thing he finds he’s copying. Florin pulls him aside one afternoon. “You do know that you are putting Romanian into your English?”

After that, Arthur’s more careful in checking which language Andrei speaks before committing the words to memory.

*

They stay at the first farm for about a week, before moving on to do the same task in another place. The caravans are ‘grottier’, but the showers run warm. It’s a bigger farm, and they meet other groups there. Also, more bins.

“Not that one, mate!” The man calling out is tall and broad as Percy. “The green one. For composting.”

“Composting?” It’s a word that sounds vaguely familiar to Arthur. Something he read in the hospital magazines all those weeks ago, maybe?

“Save the Earth, you know.” Not-Percy is holding up the green bin’s lid, so Arthur tips the peelings in and offers a brief word of thanks.

He asks Andrei to explain later that evening, and gets a slightly confused explanation about ‘recycling’ and ‘finite resources’ that Arthur _thinks_ means that, as the area’s rural, they have limited supplies.

But his understanding of Andrei’s explanation doesn’t seem quite right, so Arthur composes a text to Ginger that evening, hoping for further clarification.

It doesn’t send. There is no signal.

*

Without the internet, evenings feel surprisingly long. Arthur - used to working through matters of state while Merlin tidied up, prattling away about castle gossip, and Gwen, usually busy with her sewing, threw in the occasional well-considered opinion - finds himself somewhat at a loss. He takes more time with his cooking, because he _can_. Takes out Ann’s worksheets, to keep up his efforts with ‘self-reflection’ and, yes, makes the odd additional sketch in the corner before remembering the paper and pencils Ginger gave him. His working doesn’t seem up to the quality of the materials he’s been gifted, but Arthur doesn’t think she’ll hold that against him.

One evening he even brings out his mail and plate, folded carefully in his cloak at the bottom of what Andrei has a tendency to call Arthur’s ‘carryall’.

“What’s that?” Andrei asks.

Arthur tells him, but keeps his mind on the polishing, not wanting to lose track.

“Is that part of your ‘King Arthur’ thing?” Andrei says the words carefully, like he’s worried about causing offence.

“Florin said that?”

Andrei shrugs. “He’s my cousin.”

“Ah.” That makes a certain amount of sense. Arthur had been surprised by how little Florin kept an eye on someone making such outrageous claims.

“Is it true?” And then, when Arthur looks over, stiffly offended at being presumed to have lied, “That’s fine. Odd. But fine.”

*

‘Odd, but fine’ could describe a lot of what happens at the farms. For the evenings are loud with people unwinding after a long day working hard. It’s not the work itself that bothers Arthur, though it’s certainly not work he wants to still be doing in his dotage, but rather the mornings. They start early, before the sun.

It’s worse when Arthur realises that he’s not undertaken any training for weeks now, and resolves to start each day with an hour’s drill. It’s a fight every morning not to drop that hour down to forty minutes (or maybe less), but there’d been that _bloody_ statement in the book about his return from Avalon being to do with the kingdom’s ‘greatest need’ and Arthur’s damned if he’ll face that peril, whatever it may prove to be, with rusty sword skills.

Gods, but it’s a stupid prophesy!

_He will return, at the time of Albion's greatest need._ What’s that even meant to mean? Because Arthur certainly has no idea what to make of it. He’d think that the book’s author made it up, except that the same idea is _all over the internet_.

Worse still, it's not _entirely_ wrong. For Arthur has certainly, an in defiance of any common sense, returned. But why now, when everything seems to be trundling along just fine? And why _him_ , of all the people in history? And why as he is, with no army and no plan, and not even a fully working grasp of the language?

The only possible conclusion Arthur can come to, is that the Gods like having a joke.

“Hey. Arthur. Time to come in for breakfast.”

*

There’s training at one end of the day and, quickly, football and ’rugby’ at the other end. Arthur doesn’t think he’s been so physically drained and yet mentally awake in years. It’s a surprise that isn’t really a surprise to realise that he’s enjoying himself.

Arthur carries that light-heartedness with him to the third farm.

There’s a change in routine from the previous places. Rather than fruit, Arthur’s assigned to a group walking out in the fields, picking up potatoes after the ground’s tilled by a ‘tractor’. A truck follows alongside for them to pass the tubers up into. Not having to carry a heavy sack certainly helps, though Arthur’s glad of the sturdy boots Mister Paterson got him. Doubly glad when a particular sod slips under his ankle, nearly dumping him in the dirt.

„Alright there, Arthur?‟ Mihai calls, and Arthur’s able to wave his concern off with a smile.

Everything’s good, and yet-

Years (and centuries) ago, Arthur had ridden out to Ealdor with Merlin. Had gone there to fight and to protect; to do his best no matter what.

Arthur had tried to do the right thing. (And not to charm Merlin, but because it was what Arthur needed of _himself_.) More than that, he’d thought he’d done it _well_. He had used what little influence he held with his father to gain a king’s audience for a peasant woman from a neighbouring land, because she needed help. He had given his servant leave to visit his mother, because everyone around him had always said how much a mother was meant to mean. He had determined to stand against impossible odds, because the only thing Arthur could let be worse than certain death, was dishonour and harm to those he’d claimed to protect.

Arthur can still remember bedding down on Hunith’s floor to sleep, top-to-tail with his manservant, Merlin; strange, engaging, certainly not conventionally attractive and yet somehow compelling.

Arthur had tried to make small-talk, much like he had heard the knight chatter together on long evenings when escorting their prince. Lying next to Merlin, Arthur had asked about the reasons for him leaving a mother he adored and a home that he seemed happy enough in, meaning only for it to be light and perhaps somewhat informative. Somehow the conversation grew weighty, to Arthur at least, as it brushed on Merlin’s intentions and whether Camelot was somewhere he fit.

It’s not that Arthur had expected Merlin to say, with confidence and openness, that, yes, within the royal household he’d found a place he belonged. But Arthur had thought that there would be some small promise for optimism. Maybe an ‘I think I might have found a place’, or a joking ‘well, there’s this prat who seems to need me’. _Something_. Not, _I don’t know yet._

Like nothing Arthur had done meant anything.

It shouldn’t have been so unexpected. Certainly his father had always been quick enough to note Arthur’s short comings. But that Merlin could so easily dismiss the idea that he belonged, when Arthur had, sincerely, done his very best to let him know that he would be supported-

It had felt like more of a rejection that Merlin doubtless intended.

The sting lingered with Arthur for years, though even in the moment Arthur had known he was being presumptuous. That he needed to wed and to sire an heir. That Merlin was very young, and also very much under Arthur’s power, even if he never much acted that way.

So Arthur had taken all his thoughts and his maybes; folding them carefully away. Either Merlin would leave or Merlin would settle (maybe even act on the signs that Arthur feared he imagined), and, regardless, that now was not the time.

For all of Merlin’s friendly insolence, there never really came a time.

Besides, there’d been Gwen; always warm and certain and open. Things between the two of _them_ had flowered, until all that remained towards Merlin had been-

_-maybe_.

Now, in this distant time where nothing fits quite rightly, Arthur can, for the first time, see that Merlin’s indifference that night was less about Arthur or Camelot and much more about Merlin himself; his own sensation of misfit in the world.

Still, a decade after that night and Merlin hadn’t settled enough to tell Arthur the truth. Clearly Merlin had never felt like he fit in the kingdom Arthur ruled.

Arthur’s not going to make the same mistake. If this is to be his life, then he’ll live it. He’ll _make_ himself belong, starting by understanding why the moment feels so strange.

It takes him most of the morning to put his finger on what’s been bothering him. That, for all the turned soil he’s stepped over; for all the rocks he’s tossed aside and for all of the potatoes he’s dusted rich-loam from, Arthur’s yet to see a single worm.


	30. Part 4, Chapter 2:  Prejudice and other Poisons

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for mentions of racism and historic animal cruelty.

“You know,” Andrei says, dropping down onto one sagging chair while holding his plate of spaghetti close as if suspecting the table too rickety to trust. Which, to be fair, it may be. “You could probably sell that for a fair bit of money.”

Arthur, intent on working some oil into the leather strap and its buckle, takes his time before replying. The leather feels strong and sturdy under his fingers; it’s served him in countless battles. “Why would I do that?”

He thinks he’s kept his reply calm and even, but something must have leaked out.

“I’m not saying you _should_ sell it, Arthur. Just that you _could_. You know. If you wanted to.”

It seems rude to point out that, firstly, Arthur’s English is good enough to understand the statement as originally given. And, secondly, that Andrei’s simply repeated himself. Arthur takes a moment to look at the leather; checking the holes there for any sign of wear.

Not that he has any method for repair should it be damaged.

“There’s nothing I need to buy,” he says eventually.

“You could get a…” Andrei trails off. “Well, okay, if you’re working the season, a deposit on a flat’s not much use for now. I suppose you could get a van.”

A van?

Arthur makes himself mull the proposition over. Briefly. It’s outrageous, but, in his Council Chambers, he’s heard worse proposals offered with lesser sincerity. Under his palms, the armour waits; familiar. It’s only metal and leather; so why does it feel so fundamental to him?

Besides, where would he even park a van? Most of the farms are tight on space for visiting vehicles. Arthur’s seen more than one argument break out between labourers and farm managers.

“No.”

“Fair enough.” Andrei seems to relax, knowing that the topic’s off the table. He shovels in a mouthful dripping with rich-red tomatoes. “I just thought that it seemed heavy and all. But then, vans are expensive. You’ve got to tax them and insure them. There’s diesel…” He rambles about the dread terror of vehicle ownership which, from what Arthur can tell, involves many of the downside of keeping a horse (both requiring fuel, stabling and regular care) with none of the upsides (an injured knight on a mount can be reasonably well assured that at least one of the party still has brains enough to get them home).

“Hey. Do you even drive?”

*

The current farm they’re working is over in Shropshire. Arthur’d spent some time the night before pouring over his maps, tracing out the local roads and, after thinking of Timothy, taking note of the nearby train stations.

What the maps hadn’t conveyed were the local hills, awash in morning light. They rise, purple with heather, immense and rolling and _present_. There’s a small village, nestled in a slight valley down that smooth slope. The land catches the smell of burning charcoal and wood that rises from those chimneys, holding it close. Arthur hadn’t even realised he’d missed the scent until it engulfs him.

The farm is mostly a ‘pastoral’ farm, which, from what Arthur can understand, means that there are sheep. Quite a lot of them.

The farmer isn’t interested in setting them to work with the sheep; rather there are ditches to be cleared. It soon becomes apparent that Andrei’s question the night before about vans and driving, while mostly idle, had perhaps been stirred up by an understanding of what the task entails.

There are mechanical diggers, and there are shovels. Andrei ends up in a team with the former; Arthur in the team with the latter.

It’s slow and messy work. When Elena comes around at noon, carrying a pair of thermoses with much more ease than her suitcase, Arthur’s more than willing to take a break.

„Tea or coffee?‟ she offers, and laughs when Arthur makes a disgusted face. „Water, then?‟

„Thanks,‟ he takes the plastic cup she holds out and drains it quickly. „Again?‟

Elena rolls her eyes, but tops the cup up before moving on to Victor and Marius, further along the field boundary. Arthur drops the cup into the waste bag they’ve been separating litter into from the ditch-weeds, some of which looks like it’s been lying around for rather a long time, then gets back to work. The sun’s high, but the breeze is chill; it’s not a day for standing around on.

He’s another few yards further on by the time Elena comes back. He’s vaguely aware of the her rummaging about. “Arthur!” She sounds vexed, which leaves Arthur ready to be irritated in return, even before he’s fully turned to see her standing there, hands on her hips.

And, in seeing her standing there, poised like a cook about to reprimand her scullery girls, finds his temper falling into droll humour. “Yes?”

“What do you call this?” She’s holding up his cup, because apparently sifting through rubbish heaps is a lady-like activity in the future.

“A cup.” Arthur says, and then repeats it again in Romanian, even as he suspects that this isn’t the purpose of her question.

She _doesn’t_ throw it at his head, though by the look on her face it’s a near thing. Arthur has a lot of sympathy with that expression of put-upon-irritation. “And _why_ have you thrown it upon?”

Arthur blinks. Looks at the cup; looks at Elena. Looks at the waste bag. “Because,” he starts uncertainly, “it is?”

“No.” She says firmly. And then, with something approaching exasperated kindness. “It is not. We are reusing and recycling. This,” she waggles the cup about, “is still good.”

“Okay,” Arthur agrees, endeavouring to sound more certain than he feels. It appears there’s going to be even more washing up in the future. Though why they don’t simply throw the vessels away and buy more afresh, he couldn’t say. Plenty of other goods made from that type of plastic are thrown.

Maybe it’s expensive?

He tries to ask Elena, thinking that maybe he’s misvalued the object, but she’s been called away.

*

The day may have started cool, but the sun turns hot in the late of the afternoon and, on their way back to the caravans, Mihai pushes Andrei into the village pond with a laugh. One by one, the others join in.

The water is shockingly cold and more than a little murky. Someone grabs at Arthur’s head, dunking him under, and Arthur lets himself sink before striking out with a strong kick for the other side. He gets nowhere near so far; colliding instead with somebody’s ankles. It seems as good a hint as any that he could try and push that person over.

Needless to say, it gets chaotic.

Later, on the way back up the hill, Arthur pulls his wet shirt off, the better to feel the evening sun warm his back. Mihai, left several steps back having stopped to wring out his sweater, whistles, a long drawn-out sound of uncertainty.

Once such a note would have meant trouble. Arthur’s already turning, hands groping for a sword that isn’t there, before remembering that times have changed.

When he tries to follow Mihai’s gaze; it’s only for him. „What … to you?‟

Arthur tries to turn back, confused, but Andrei’s hand on his arm stops him. The man says something long and low that Arthur can’t translate. The expression on his face is easier to read though, even if Arthur does have to do so while twisting to look back over his own shoulder.

Apparently scars are as much a topic of conversation now as they’ve ever been. He probably should have guessed that from Officer MacAdam.

“Who hurt you?” Andrei says and Arthur, standing in the midst of a future where roads are easy, forests seem insufficient for bandit activity, and outlying farms lack even rudimentary fortification, realises he doesn’t know how to answer that.

He tries. “Over years, there were a few…” But he doesn’t know how to say either ‘battles’ nor ‘skirmishes’.

Andrei must read _something_ into Arthur’s words though, because he swears. Just the once; emphatically. Then he pulls Arthur into a quick, one-armed hug, much as Arthur’s knights shared, and turns to face back up the road.

“I was thinking.” He says as they trudge along, voice striving for light-hearted. “Let’s see about getting you on one of the diggers tomorrow.”

“I’m not licenced.” Arthur reminds him.

And Andrei grins, expression suddenly delightedly devious. “Private land, you see. No problem there.”

*

„The pub, my friend, is open.‟

It’s a long day to follow on from long days. Arthur’s still ‘on the shovel’, though Andrei swears that he’s talking Florin around about the diggers. A walk and a drink sound like perfection itself.

Andrei, because he’s never quite able to focus on just one thing, swings by the ‘corner shop’ on the way. Arthur loiters by the door. There’s nothing he wants to buy and, honestly, the pricing structure of the future alarms him. Arthur’s far from certain what it means for current trading routes that the cost of passage for a letter (as given by a stamp) carried from one end of the country to the other, is worth less than six minutes of a worker’s time. As for the fact that bananas picked half a world away can cost less by weight than salmon, which _should_ be found swimming in any large, local river…

Generally he leaves the meal planning to his caravan-mates; paying his share of the costs without comment.

“Arthur. Get over here.” Andrei’s by the merchant’s counter with an assortment of vegetables and a bottle of milk. (And why is Andrei allowed to throw out milk bottles, while Arthur’s under pain-of-Elena’s-disapproval if he does likewise with their cups?) Arthur’s options are to capitulate or to further delay their progress to the pub.

He joins Andrei, wondering if he’s forgotten his wallet again. As Arthur goes, he picks up a block of strong cheese at the fridge section. After all, if he’s paying (at least until they straighten things out this evening), then they can definitely have something flavourful to eat with their morning cold cuts and jam.

Andrei gives him an unfriendly look for the cheese, but that’s just because the man has a woeful lack of appreciation for the stronger flavours in life. Mihai, at least, will back Arthur up.

“And?” Arthur challenges.

He’s very careful to direct this only to Andrei, and not the girl behind the counter. Elena has been very clear that it’s rude to speak the common conjunction in such a manner. But ladies are ladies and Andrei is Andrei.

Case in point, Andrei just rolls his eyes. Then he ruins it all, because he _doesn’t_ ask Arthur to pay: “You want to talk to that girl of yours, don’t you?”

Gwen?

For a moment longing tears, sharper than Mordred’s blade, through Arthur. Then he realises who Andrei must mean. “Ginger’s not my girl.”

“Eh. Okay.” Andrei pulls a card off a stand near to the till. Looks at the back. Pays it more attention than Arthur. “Yes.” He looks up, suddenly decisive, “that’s the one.” He holds it out to Arthur expectantly.

Arthur looks at the card, doing his best to channel the expression he’s perfected with Merlin; one that says why-are-you-handing-me- _that_ -dreadful-thing. Andrei seems no more cowed than Merlin would have been. “Trust me. That SIM will fix all of your internet problems.”

*

The pub is lovely.

It’s in what, to Arthur, feels like a modern brick building that’s somehow been standing for long enough that the colours have all swirled together. The walls slope comfortably, like a guard slumping after a long night’s watch, and are decorated with polished brass embellishments. There’s an utterly unnecessary fire in the corner.

As they walk in, everyone turns to look over.

For the first time since waking, Arthur feels like he’s on familiar ground; is in a place where everyone clearly knows one another and has probably been living in the same pattern for generations.

He’d begun to fear that sense of belonging vanished with the magic.

“What can I get you?”

The man behind the bar is chatty. His name’s Owen, and the pub’s been in his family since the sacking of Wenlock Priory, whenever that may prove to have been. There’s a polished edge to his words and his questions; the rambling of a life-long publican and one who’s unabashedly nosy. But there’s also a friendliness to that curiosity as he pulls Andrei’s pint and pours Arthur’s wine and, all the while, digs out of Andrei the details of where he’s from and where he’s going.

Apparently the man’s disappointed, in a more-indifferent-than-not type of way, to realise they’re not Polish. “Such beautiful salt mines,” he says, ringing up their round, “though don’t tell that to the Cheshire folks. Can’t wait to get over there again for the Christening.”

It’s strange to sit down, in front of a fire, and just watch the world come and go.

Andrei drinks his first pint quickly, only slowing on his second, but Arthur lingers over the wine. It’s pleasant and smooth, tasting only somewhat like the varieties that used to reach Camelot. It shouldn’t make him homesick.

It does.

“Do you ever miss your land?” Arthur doesn’t mean to ask, it just slips out.

“Sometimes,” Andrei says with a shrug. “But I’ll be back soon.” Only the slightest of tension around his eyes suggests that he’s aware that, for Arthur, isn’t not quite so simple.

Arthur could let it go. Instead he asks, “Someone is waiting?”

And Andrei doesn’t hide the warmth of fondness that washes across his face. “Only my favourite woman. My mother.”

*

That night, when he goes to lay his head down upon the pillow, Arthur takes a moment to look at his phone with its new SIM and-

He’d forgotten just how diligent Ginger could be in finding articles.

He saves them to look at in the morning.

*

The next morning finds Arthur grim and silent. He fills bags with sand from an immense heap, then stacks them in barrows for others to wheel away.

The morning had started well enough, if ever too early, but from there… He’d made the mistake of starting the day with Ginger’s articles and-

Pollution. Global warning. Climate change. Whales dying stuffed with plastic. Bees lying dead in their hives.

_Seven and a half billion people._

It’s enough to make his head spin. Worse even than the time that he’d been caught out in the meadows with Merlin; the night dark and clear around them as Merlin had thrown back his head, face just a smear of motion in the moonless night, and said-

It had been something about counting the heavens. Or maybe about destiny. Probably a bit of both, mixed in with a dose of ‘you’ll make a great king’, which is ridiculous, because all that Arthur’s made is a _dead_ king, and even that he hasn’t managed to stick to.

Seven and a half _billion_ people. Arthur just can’t add it all up. So many people!

There are- He looks at the grains of sand sticking to his hand; makes a quick calculation of how many he could grasp in his fist; how much that would weigh and how many fistfuls must make up the sandbags. Tries to figure out how many sandbags _seven and a half billion_ grains of sand would fill and-

It’s a lot. Thousands of sandbags. More than they need to finish this job.

Those are just grains of sand.

He tries to imagine all of those people eating and drinking. Building houses and setting up families. Learning crafts and-

He really hopes that they’re going to the pub again this evening. He needs to stop thinking about this rather urgently and-

When Elena comes around with her flasks and her cups… When Arthur thinks seven and a half billion people throwing things away…

He really wants a glass of wine. Or several.

*

After so long of watching and listening to everyone else understanding the world better than him, when Arthur happens across a perfectly edible patch of 「ladies’ fan」 on the way back to the caravan one evening, he picks it. It will be nice to have something just gently peppery to eat for once.

Later, Andrei, watching Arthur wash the leaves in the sink before adding them to their salad, pulls a face. “Dude. Will this kill me?”

“Just eat your greens.” That’s what Victor told Elena; Arthur gets the same reply from Andrei. Namely, Andrei looks deeply unimpressed, then dumps most of his salad back into the bowl. Presumably it’s left for Mihai to eat later.

Arthur rolls his eyes, and takes an extra helping.

After dinner, they head back to the pub. At the last moment, Arthur takes Ginger’s folio with him. It’s not that he thinks there’ll be time for quiet solitude and yet…

The air outside is still. It feels like the season is holding its breath. Overhead a flight of ducks pass, heading from somewhere to elsewhere and, despite being freshly fed, Arthur has a moment to miss his crossbow and the possibility of well-cooked game.

“Huh,” Andrei sounds surprised, though it’s only when he says, “Does that looks cleaner?” that Arthur realises he’s not also been watching the ducks.

“What?”

Andrei nods at the pond, but Arthur can see nothing strange about it. Just reeds and water and a late-flowering lily. “Your bill could be being cleaner,” he offers. “It’s your round.”

Andrei snorts. “Is not.”

“Is.” Arthur bought the final set of drinks the previous night. And the first set of drinks for that matter. They’d not even had that many glasses.

“Your bloody wine’s twice the price,” Andrei returns.

They’re still bickering when they enter the pub. “I’ll take care of this for you,” Andrei stays, taking Arthur’s sketches, “You’re going to need both your hands, after all.”

Being left at the bar is, Arthur supposes, one way of ‘settling’ their debate. Though it only seems fair that, upon returning with the drinks, Arthur demands recompense. He’s almost decided on telling Andrei that his ‘cheapskate’ nature now means he’s in charge of laundry for the rest of the week, when he realises that Andrei’s flicking through the images. Watching someone else’s hands on his, admittedly less than well-rendered, memories leaves Arthur stilled by tension.

Andrei’s touch, much like his cookery, is careful.

“Who’s she?”

Is it just chance that has him pausing on an image of Gwen? Or a simple fact that she fills a considerable fraction of the pages? (Assuming, of course, that one could see the continued similarity between one portrait and the next.) “My wife.”

“I see.” Andrei nods. “Queen Guinevere?” And even though Arthur _knows_ he must be sceptical of Arthur’s claim, Andrei manages to ask the question straight-faced.

“She’s dead,” Arthur says, both because it’s the first and last thing he has to remind himself every time that he thinks of her, and also because he can’t find clearer words to tell Andrei that he mustn’t be mocking of this.

Maybe Andrei hears the unspoken message. Maybe not. His gaze on Arthur is thoughtful before he turns the page. “And this?”

Arthur looks. Grimaces. He’d not been able to render the scar quite so… faded-yet-prominent as it had been in truth. “My father.”

“He looks …” But Arthur doesn’t recognise that word.

Andrei turns the page once more. “And this?”

It’s Merlin; face turned away, distracted, as it always was when they made camp in the woods. “Someone else,” Arthur hedges. Tells himself he hedges because ‘Merlin’ as talked about in this era was an aged fossil of a man, but also because these images… they feel… raw.

It’s almost a relief when Andrei turns the page and there is Gwen once more; the smile on her lips not quite right; the way she’d meet and hold his gaze, unconvertable. The crown on her brow had been the easiest part to render; that was just cold, unliving metal.

“Not exactly what I was expecting as a mythical queen, I have to admit.” Andrei says carefully.

“She was a little short,” Arthur agrees, though he’s seen enough of the modern world to know that height is no-longer quite so synonymous with ‘stately’.

Andrei rolls his eyes. “Not quite what I was driving at, mate.” He puts the pad down, in favour of taking a sip of his beer. “So, she’s who you think pretty?”

A woman who would challenge him when she thought him in the wrong? Who would step up and, with carefully articulated logic, talk down his councillors? And her lips? Arthur smiles. “There is no woman, better.”

Andrei laughs. “You’re definitely smitten. And…?”

“ _And?_ ” Arthur gives Andrei a frown, but also the benefit of the doubt. For he sincerely _hopes_ the other man isn’t asking what he appears to have implied.

“And was it her alone?” Then, at Arthur’s frown, “Come on. I might not know much about that time, but there’s… you know?... gossip. Mistresses, visiting princesses, charming-”

Arthur’s so startled he almost chokes on his wine. “No!” He’s not his _father_ , dallying with (or rather assaulting? the suggestion fills his mind in Ginger’s voice, maybe raping?) other women because his wife won’t bear him an heir.

Andrei grins, pleased as one of Arthur’s hounds, trotting back with a downed rabbit in its jowls. “So, _only_ your queen despite-” Arthur doesn’t mean to let the thought pass across his face; Andrei catches it none-the-less, “There _was_ someone else and-”

“Not like _that_. And it was before-” Well, not before Arthur _knew_ of Gwen, but certainly before he ever considered the courting of her. “ _Nothing_ happened. And apparently I look like a frog.”

Andrei blinks. Snorts. "Maybe one after the princess has kissed it." And then, because Arthur can't pretend to know what he's talking about. "Well, you're hardly ugly, mate. I think she had a crush on you."

Heat, sudden and mortifying, floods Arthur’s face. "She did not." Then he realises what he's said. "I mean-" he cuts his correction off. Somehow he doesn't think that correcting Merlin's gender is going to help here.

"Like that, was it? Did you pull her hair and push her in the mud?" Whatever he reads in Arthur's face is enough to double him over, wheezing. "Dude! No matter how you feel, girls don't like that crap."

"No." Arthur agrees easily, Merlin's words of long ago coming back to him. "They like jewellery and pretty things."

Andrei gives him a funny look. "Well. Yeah. Who doesn't? But I was thinking more along the line of 'no pain' and 'a bit of respect'."

Arthur's thrown. Because it's not like he'd ever treat a _woman_ like that. "It's... that wasn't Gwen," is the closest he can come to an explanation.

Andrei rolls his eyes. "I should hope not. Far too childish. It's boys who get embarrassed that they like girls and try to hide it badly. Not men."

Uncomfortable as the topic is, with the warmth of the fire, a glass of wine in his hand, and a… friend… to pass the time with, it’s the first time in a long time that Arthur’s felt like, maybe, he could belong.

*

It’s not a feeling that lasts long.

“And _don’t_ come back.” The night outside is black. A bruise is rising on Arthur’s cheek and, from the weight of Andrei leaning against him, he’s fairly certain that the man is worried Arthur’s about to head back into the fight. That, or he's much more concussed than the scuffle should account for.

“Damn. You got us barred.” Andrei doesn’t sound all together bothered by this. “Better let Florin know. You’ll be right in the dog box for this one.”

Arthur grimaces. Somehow he suspects Florin’s going to be less than pleased. Arthur can almost see his chances of learning to use the heavy machinery going up in smoke.

“I didn’t say _barred_ ,” Owen corrects from where he’s guarding the doorway. “More of a come-back-next-year-when-everyone’s-forgotten.”

“Ah,” Andrei brightens, “That’s good of you.”

Owen shrugs. “Well, I’ve a selectively bad memory for faces. Plus, he had it coming.”

“Still,” Andrei says. “Thank you. Until next year.” He moves them off; the arm he has around Arthur leaving no room for argument.

They’ve barely stepped onto the road when it starts to rain.

Arthur puts the drawings under his jacket, then wonders if he should give his jacket to Andrei. After all, his shirt’s been rather badly ripped in the defence of Gwen’s honour.

For a while their progress is made in strained silence. Knowing that he’s caused harm enough, Arthur tries to hold his silence, but, because he cannot not ask, the questions spills out: "What's a monkey?"

Andrei gives him a strange look. Then, pulling out his mobile, brings something up and passes it over. Raindrops bead across the screen, but Andrei doesn’t seem concerned, so Arthur isn’t either. Instead he looks at the creature photographed. It looks like…

“I saw one of these. Long ago.” Arthur says, slowly, “It was dancing.” The bear-baiters had brought it along, dressed up and performing. It had scampered around Uther’s high table, carrying sweetmeats for… oh! Arthur must have been all of ten. Later, some of the ladies had said the creature looked like a bright little child itself, though personally Arthur thought the bears, towering above him on their hind legs, were built more like men; their faces wild and full of hurt.

“A dancing monkey?” Andrei sounds dubious.

Arthur smiles, but can’t find the energy to debate the validity of his childhood. Andrei can believe or not as he chooses. “Are monkeys bad?” Certainly it’s no flattery for one man to call another a cur despite the admirable loyalty of hounds.

“If you’re black, like your Gwen, certainly. I mean, it's an insult, isn't it? To make them less human than us.”

Arthur frowns, not certain how people can confuse humans with being less human; not liking how Andrei has put them into one box and his queen into another. But Andrei is continuing: “It's like with me and the lads, see. I've heard people say that we're all dumb as shit and happy to live in shithole caravans. That it's all that we're good for. But that's not true. I'm getting my money and I'm going to get out of here. And you know what I'm doing with my money?”

Arthur shakes his head.

“I'm building my mum a new house. A better house. She'll live like a queen, far better than any of the assholes laughing at me. So then we'll see who has the last laugh and who's the stupid little animal.”

Arthur hadn’t realised anyone said anything of the sort. He walks along and wonders what else he’s missed picking up on.

They’re most of the way up the hill and halfway back to the farm before Andrei breaks their silence. “Wait. You’re telling me you hit a man over a word you didn’t even understand?”

“You heard how he said it.”

Andrei grimaces. “True.” Plays with his phone for a moment longer, then hands to Arthur. “Although we should work on your animal words. Do you recognise that?”

It’s a cat. “I can also name it in Romanian,” Arthur reminds him dryly. „All of Mihai’s cat videos.‟

“You’ve not seen anything yet.” And, truly, it appears Andrei is correct. Lions and elephants; emus and ostriches; kangaroos. Andrei seems determined to show him all. Unicorns come up after zebras; Andrei laughing, “Of course, only one of those is real.”

It seems like a shame that Arthur will never see a creature with such beautiful stripes.


	31. Part 4, Chapter 3:  The River and the Trees

The day Arthur ends up back in a hospital is a day that both starts, and ends, with red smearing his hands.

In the morning, it’s blood. _His_ blood to be specific.

“And without gloves either!” The nurse (currently busy using tweezers to pull grit from Arthur’s hand) may share an age with Gaius, but she has little of the man’s charm.

“I don’t think gloves would have helping,” Arthur hedges. Certainly the raw scrapes along his side and down his thigh to his knee show that neither denim nor cotton had made much difference. Maybe plate metal could have?

“ _Proper_ gloves,” he’s scolded. “If you’re going to act like an idiot, then you should dress the part.”

What does it say, that Arthur doesn’t know whether, by that, she means he should find sturdier gear or parade about in a jester’s garments?

“How fast were you going, anyway?”

His speed? It had felt like he’d been flying! Arthur tries to remember the numbers on the gauge James had shown him. “I think… twenty miles an hour?”

The nurse snorts. “Well, at least you were keeping it down.”

It hadn’t felt like he’d been going slowly, thought Arthur’s aware that the van moves much faster. The motorbike is a new activity; one Arthur’s only picked up on their most recent farm. It’s old and sturdy and Arthur’s fallen in love with it with a passion he's previously reserved only for swords and crossbows.

He really didn’t expect the farmer, James, to be willing to _sell it_ to him. And for just the ‘price’ of a few extra shifts.

Not that it’s been an unmitigated success. In between spilling him onto the ground, the bike breaks down now and then. Usually that would be something of a deterrent – Arthur’s not going to claim a few online videos have granted him the skills to tackle far-future machinery – but Victor and Mihai alike seem more than familiar with such contrivances. More to the point, they’re happy to loom over Arthur’s shoulder making helpful comments in the most insulting manner possible; wasting their meagre free time ensuring he fixes everything correctly.

“Do you _know_ what tarmac does to skin?” Despite her tone, the nurse’s hands are careful, if not exactly gentle. It’s likely there’s no skill available to mortal hands that can gentle the sting from dabbing antiseptic on. The Sidhe, however,-

But Arthur doesn’t want to remember Avalon.

“I _don’t_ know what tarmac is.”

Well, she certainly fixes that problem for him.

To be fair, there’s not a whole lot of tarmac on the farm for Arthur to have learned about. Plenty of concrete and gravel and, of course, earth. And, up until three days ago, Arthur _had_ been using the bike exclusively on the farm.

“…and after that,” she wraps up with, “it’s grinding on your _bone_. Do you know what ‘life altering injuries’ means?” He doesn’t. She remedies this even as she winds bandages up his arm to match the ones running the length of his leg and the dressing stuck to his ribs.

“I wore the helmet,” Arthur defends. James had been very insistent about that.

She reaches over to pick the offending item up from the cot besides Arthur. Looks at something; scowls. “Ten years out of date! Do you have a death wish?”

Not entirely certain he should take the question seriously or not, Arthur settles on, “No.”

As for the bit about expiry dates? He doesn’t know what to make of that. Although, as the helmet’s now scratched all down the right side, and deeply chipped near the visor, she can rest assured that Arthur won’t be wearing _that_ piece of gear again.

“ _Good_. Then I’m going to give you the same advice I gave my idiot son when he went through the motorbike phase. Get the right kit!” And then, in a tone that’s finally more concerned than vehement, “Didn’t they go over that with you as part of the see-be-tea?”

“Er.”

“It’s called compulsory _basic_ training for a reason. This stuff is fundamental.”

Training? True, Andrei had said something about needing a licence to take a _van_ on public roads a while back. But the bike is just a motorised variant of the contraption Ginger showed him. She’d said children used _that_!

Arthur’s beginning to appreciate that there might be more to this that he first suspected.

He also doesn’t think that explaining he’s yet to undertake any training or licencing activities is the best way to proceed with this. He’s already received a few sharp words from Florin, making the drive to ‘Accident and Emergency’ awkward. Apparently, and despite the fact that it looked not much different from some of the better ‘private’ farm roads, the route into the village was, in fact, a public road and so Arthur shouldn’t have been on it.

Arthur wants to say that the _mud_ shouldn’t have been on it. But that’s just because he’s getting spoiled in the modern era.

He just hadn’t expected the mud to be quite so _slippery_.

“You need to keep this clean,” he’s told. He agrees. “It’s not deep. Keep it dry for a day or two. Use lots of antiseptic cream. Come back if anything gets inflamed.” He gets her to write that down, just so that Andrei can confirm the instructions later then, movements stiff and body as battered as his dignity, he is released into the waiting room.

Florin looks up from his phone. “All good?”

*

Despite Arthur’s accident taking place in the early morning, and Florin getting him to the hospital shortly thereafter, it’s long turned noon by the time they head back outside. Unlocking the van, Florin reaches in and tosses Arthur a bundle of clothing. “Here. You should change.”

As Arthur’s jeans on his damaged side are either shredded (by the tarmac) or cut (by the nurse) from ankle pretty much to where the belt caught, it’s a fair comment. “I’ll be right back.”

There’s a public toilets by the side of the carpark. Arthur hastily pulls his old clothes off before tugging on a pair of soft grey trousers and a T-shirt that settles slightly too tightly for the comfort of the scrapes on his ribs.

He knows that he should rush. That Florin is busy, no matter how understandingly he’s acting, but Arthur hesitates. Looks at the fabric in his hands. The shirt, strangely, is mostly fine. It had ridden up in the collision rather than tear. Presumably the blood can be washed out. The jeans however…

Gwen would have been able to mend the damage. Arthur’s not certain how to do likewise, but to just throw the garment away…

He’s fairly certain there must be tutorials on sewing online. It’s not like he’ll have to make a good job of it; he’s seen the state of some of the other’s work clothes, kept for dirty work.

Once upon a time, such mending would have been Merlin’s problem.

As Arthur’s personal manservant he’d been entitled to any of Arthur’s cast-offs he’d cared to lay claim to. Not that he ever had. Even getting him into the official tunic of the castle had been a fight and, after that first time, when Merlin nearly died wearing it… Well, winding Merlin up about appropriate dress lost its appeal.

By the time Arthur returns to the van, clambering in, over the motorbike (very awkwardly jammed in between the rows of chairs and looking much less battered than Arthur), Florin’s ready to go. “There’s a gear shop about four miles from the farm. It does its own things. It will be cheaper, but will work.” He passes his phone to Arthur to look at (not that Arthur knows how to compare such garments) and gets them back on the road.

“Your hands.” Florin says, once they’re settled into the flow of traffic. “How long do you need off? Two days? Three days?”

Arthur’s less worried about his hands, than the fact that his leg’s too tightly bound to easily bend. Then he starts to think about the risk of infection, working out on the land.

_Then_ he realises that he only reason he _is_ here is to work. And that if he’s not working, then he needs to leave.

He has nowhere to go.

“I’m fine.”

Florin’s gaze doesn’t leave the road ahead, but he does pull a face, either because he’s aware that Arthur’s watching and wants Arthur to see, or because Arthur’s behaving _that much_ like a fool that he can’t help himself. “Three days. Then you’re in the sheds doing pick-up work.”

Pick-up work – literally tidying up the waste – is the worst paying job going. But it’s also indoors, doesn’t involve long walks across mud, and also doesn’t handle food.

Arthur nods. “Okay.”

*

They’re outside the bike shop when the phonecall comes in for Florin. It’s Elena and Marius, and Arthur can’t hear enough of the conversation to make out what the problem is, but Florin’s face pinches. “No. Do _not_ pay. I will be there. Twenty minutes.”

After he’s hung up, he looks over at Arthur. “You can leave, now, with me, or you can go in and walk back.”

Arthur’s leg hurts, but he’s confident that, so long as the walk isn’t too vigorous, he’ll be fine. Slow, but fine.

“I’ll walk.”

Florin nods. “Down that road,” he points further along the road they’ve come in on, “then left at the pub. Onto the fields towards the church with the…” Florin uses his hands to indicate a steeply pitched roof, “and from the church you’ll see the caravans to the south.”

Arthur nods. “Thank you.”

Florin shrugs. “It is my job. But no more fights with roads, yes?” And then he leaves.

*

The shop is… Well, it’s not busy. There’re a lot of items of clothing, mostly in variants on black. Gambesons, trousers, boots, helmets, gauntlets. They’re like armour.

They’re also as expensive as armour.

“Can I help you?” The young man who appears has a bushy beard and eyes that, with twinned curiosity and sympathy, sweep over Arthur’s arm where the bandages are exposed by Florin’s short sleeve.

So begins a long session of trial and error, familiar in every aspect save for the materials the ‘gear’ is constructed from.

It’s a while before Arthur leaves. In the west, the sun is low, slanting light as orange as molten metal across wheat fields. Arthur’s holding a box containing a helmet (red), a pair of gloves (his hand aches even thinking about wearing them, though experience has taught Arthur the scrapes will soon mend), and some pads for his knees and elbows (functional; but, more than that, cheap).

It’s all he can afford. Working the farm, the money’s ok, but the costs are high. He’s going to have to come back next payday.

Steve, the ‘sales guy’, sees him to the door. “Sometimes we get good quality second-hand leathers in. Jackets and the like. All properly checked and ... I’ll keep an eye out for you.”

Arthur nods, then offers his hand to shake. “Thanks.”

Steve looks at the bandages there and _does not_ accept Arthur’s hand. Instead he gestures to Arthur’s boots. “Those are okay for now. Not great, mind. But okay. Just, whatever you do, don’t wear steel toecaps when you’re riding. Got it?”

Arthur’s seen some of the damage twisted plate can cause knights flung from horses; suspects that’s the root of Steve’s concern. “Don’t be worrying. I like my toes.”

That makes Steve laugh. “Whatever. I think my own look pretty weird. But I’d rather them on my feet than in a pickle jar on the mantle.”

They part on a pleasant note; Arthur going on his way.

The September dusk is still warm; soon that will change. Arthur wonders what it will be like, outside all hours in the mud and the chill. Winter patrols – slogging along, leading the horses where the ground got too boggy; camping under dripping tree branches; riding for hours in clothing still soaked from rainfall two days prior – had been bad enough.

Here, there’s no return to Camelot and its hearths.

Of course, here, there are tumble dryers. Arthur tries to tell himself that it’s a reasonable trade, but finds himself wishing to hear Elyan worrying over the horses’ shoes once more. (What would _he_ have made of motorbikes?) Or to catch Gwaine’s complaining threats that he’ll never be persuaded to leave the next tavern they reach. (Would he have fallen over to see the range of bottles in the pub Arthur’s passing?) Or to solicit Leon’s opinion on the impact of the water sitting on the fields. (How would he find the current farming system compared to that at his ancestral home?)

The church is easy enough to locate, and, though it’s situated at the top of a rise, the land between rises and falls in a series of dips, cutting the land between into seen and unseen. Arthur picks a field boundary and strikes out, hoping not to waste too much time working his way around ditches.

Laughter, faint as the light of the just-emerging evening star, carries on the breeze.

He almost misses that laughter; it’s the childish shrieks of delight that carry furthest. Arthur pauses. It’s been a while since he heard children’s voices. They’re no more common on modern farms than they had been in Camelot’s Castle. Indeed, it had been a lonely childhood in many ways. Morgana’s arrival, prickly and certain of the gravitas her extra years granted her, had been a blessing.

It must be nice to grow up near other children.

The voices grow louder as he mounts first one rise and then the next, but it’s only as he’s heading down a particularly steep section that the singing, last of all, reaches him.

“-we all fall _down_!”

The next dip of the land reveals the twist of a small brook, filling Arthur with tense dismay. Hopefully, where it cuts around the next gentle lifting of the land, it won’t stop his progress to the church. Besides, Florin would surely have mentioned if the route were impassable?

“-down. London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down. London Bridge is-”

As Arthur walks, the children’s voices grow louder, merging with the splashing of water. It seems late for them to be out, but if Arthur’s noticed one thing about modern parenting, it’s that it’s very… observant. Doubtless they’re well supervised. There’ll probably be parents gathered nearby, voices softer than the children’s shrieks, with piles of towels and flasks of hot chocolate.

For all that Arthur’s painted the picture clearly in his mind’s eye, it’s only as he follows the contours around, just above the flow of the stream, that he sees them: there’s a group of toddlers, young and playful, frolicking in the water. Arthur can’t clearly make out how many are there, for it’s impossible to keep count as they push at and paddle around one another.

But one thing is obviously missing.

Arthur, quickly glancing north to south and back again, can see no sign of any adult. Worried, he takes an uncertain step forward, then hesitates. The children seem content. They’re energetic in their play; like puppies tumbling over one another in a pile.

He doesn’t want to frighten them.

The water is clearly very shallow. Barely ankle depth. Bullrush whispers in the slight breeze. A few windfall apples and yew berries are caught, bobbing, in eddies by the bank. The sky is shot through with lilac and pink.

The stream must be chill.

The children are very small.

He puts his box down and takes another step forward, for surely something isn’t right.

“-upon the sand, and the house came tumbling down. The rains came down and the floods came up, the-”

Shrieking out the song, a child throws themself back, into the stream, water splashing up all about their playmates. For a moment Arthur thinks they’re merely hidden in the settling chaos, then realises they haven’t surfaced at all.

He’s in the water before he’s even thought about it; surging towards the group; plunging his hands down until his fingers scrabble against the silted bed, to find-

There’s no struggling child in those shallows.

Kneeling, he looks over at the still-standing children; their laughing faces strange now they’re seen up-close and-

The children melt. It’s the only word for it. They’re there and then… They’re still there, but flowing. A smile that’s real on a face that’s transparent. A perfectly formed shoulder above an arm made of duckweed. Well-fed little bellies suddenly interrupted by a flurry of grayling, flickering from one body to another.

_Nymphs_. Or some such creatures.

Arthur stumbles up and back, but the children are gone; only their laughter lingering on the air. He staggers another step back and, for the second time that day, feels the start of an uncontrolled slide.

A hand, tiny and brittle, catches his.

Steadied, Arthur snaps around, fully expecting to see some full-grown water spirit ready to extract revenge on his un-armed and vulnerable self and-

It’s an old woman. Tiny and wrinkled; standing ankle deep in the water and… Actually she’s standing, really, very close.

「Where did you _come_ from?」 Arthur snaps before realising that, one, she won’t understand him and, two, he’s being rude. “I mean, thank you.”

Then he casts a thoughtful look around the flowing water they’re both standing in. “Are they you’s…?” But her hand is solid in his, not transient in form, so he lets the rest of his words die unspoken.

“What were they?” The woman asks.

“What…?” Arthur doesn’t have the words for them. Unless in the most abstract of ways. “Young.” Probably afraid; definitely startled. (He remembers their smiles.) _Maybe_ startled.

“Will you fight them?” In the moment, her question is perfectly sensible. For the children were surely born of nothing mortal.

And yet. As much as Arthur’s hand is aching for Excalibur, forget that the blade’s been blunted, it’s most likely not needed.

For they’re gone; departed without a single malicious action.

Just children… Innocent for now; and their future natures, be they virtuous or foul, beyond his ability to know.

Like that, Arthur is in _the_ druid glen again. Can feel the fear and the horror of it reaching for him, no matter how he counts the years or centuries since. “Probably harmless,” he hears himself say.

“Harmless?”

Blinking, Arthur turns his focus on the woman. She looks tense, but not exactly scared. It’s a particular type of bravery he’s seen over the years: the certitude of the very old; those made willing to face down _any_ ill knowing they’ve already lived through their every aspiration.

That said, and bravery aside, she looks like she could be taken apart with a single blow.

Arthur offers her his hand. “I think we should get out of the river.” He’s soaked and cold enough already. His leg feels like it’s on fire. He’s going to have to find fresh bandages on the farm, somehow.

She visibly hesitates. Again, it’s a response Arthur’s encountered before. “I won’t hurt you,” he promises, making his voice soft, “and I don’t think they’d _mean_ to hurt you. But you are better avoiding them. And getting dry.”

Making good on his own concern, Arthur steps onto the bank. Then, making sure his footing is steady, reaches down to offer his hand again.

“Dry? And warm?” Her face scrunches up in a laugh but, after a thoughtful moment, she raises her hand to take his. “I’ve no interest in fireplaces.”

She’s easier to lift from the water than Arthur had expected – the poor crone must weigh little more than her skin and bones – but every step that she takes up the bank is slow and considered; a careful lifting of one foot and replanting, before venturing to shift the other.

“Good.” Arthur smiles, encouragingly. “All dry now.” Which is, hopefully, the same as being safe from any older creatures lingering in the area.

He makes as if to drop the woman’s hand, not wishing to crowd her, but her gnarled fingers clench tight around his. Startled, Arthur looks at her.

“Can you take me home?”

It’s not that she sounds scared, but-

“Of course. Where are home?” His leg aches even thinking about the extra steps, but his honour wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Near the new church,” she says, nodding her head to the steeple just visible over the hill’s incline.

She doesn’t drop his hand as he picks up his new gear from the bank, presumably concerned about the steadiness of her footing. Indeed, for someone who appeared so silently, her steps are even more halting than his own. It makes for a more relaxing walk than Arthur expected, as he helps her over small tussocks and guides her around muddy patches.

“Are you living here many years?” He asks, attempting to practice his English. Certainly, it doesn’t seem an easy place for someone so elderly. Besides the church, there’s not a building in sight. Her home must lie on the far side.

“All my life,” she replies, voice strained with effort. Arthur slows his steps further.

There’s a small wilderness on the final stretch leading to the church. Trees, shrubs, brambles. Arthur wouldn’t call it a wood or even a copse, but it’s a break from the unrelenting openness of the fields. The goldening leaves hide all but the very tip of the spire and, despite what she’s called it, Arthur thinks the church must be old indeed to have acquired such an appearance.

Then they step under the first branches. Even that one trace of humanity is lost. The air closes in around them; rich with the scent of fallen leaves decaying into new life.

“I saw you once,” her voice sounds stronger, their slower pace presumably easier on her, “when I was very young.”

Arthur smiles. “I think you confusing me with someone else.”

She pauses, both feet firm upon the ground, meeting his eyes with steady conviction. “No,” she says. “I’m not.” And then, before Arthur can think of anything to retort with, “This way.”

It’s a steep climb, though with every pace the woman seems to gather vigour, until it feels more like her grip is supporting Arthur’s injured weight than the other way around and-

The underbrush ends; the church lies directly ahead obstructed only a straggly, open cluster of yew, and a low sandstone wall.

It’s a peaceful spot. To one side, the ground drops away, showing a sky well mellowed into evening. And the air, though in that song-less pause where one species of bird gives way to another, is rich with the gurgle of a hidden stream.

Arthur wonders why so many trees were planted, just outside the boundary wall, rather than _as_ the boundary wall. “Usually these are used to keep the animals out.”

“She’s just the one tree,” his companion says, stepping beneath the low hanging boughs and onto the encircled needle carpet. “A rather old one. She was here first.”

Arthur, struck by something he cannot quite name, hesitates to follow. That ring of yew, with its shabby, worn-needled trees and it’s too-bright berries feels… _more_. More present, more steady, more real than the ground he’s currently standing on, or the air that the bats, appearing overhead, wing their way through.

Certainly more real than the tumbledown stone wall and the old building beyond.

The woman turns back to him, perhaps wondering why he’s left her side now. And Arthur remembers his word to see her home safely.

It’s clear that she knows where she’s going; has walked this route a lifetime of days. Even if something… other… lingers here, then it’s done her no more harm than the stream’s children have.

As he steps through, Arthur ducks, yet still the branches seem to soothe through his hair.

“Just the one tree?” He asks. There’d been a thicket of ancient yew not far into the woods from Camelot’s main route. One particular gnarled, old specimen had grown there, its trunk split in two down near enough to the base that every autumn covered the split with leafmould and a horse could be ridden through, as if between quite separate trees.

Arthur can’t imagine how long this current specimen must have lingered, to have spread so wide.

“Yes, though she’s not alone here.”

There are magpies in the branches (and nymphs in the stream). Arthur can see why an old lady, walking this lonely way, might start to imagine things about the tree. So, as he steps across the circle and over to the churchyard wall, all he says is, “I’m glad to hear that.”

The wall is formed of thick sandstone slabs laid long enough they’re near buried beneath moss. It’s low, stopping as it does mid-way up Arthur’s thigh, but it’s hardly the type of obstacle he can see a woman, long since past her spryer days, hopping over.

Arthur starts to look, searching for a better point at which to help her over.

「Welcome back, my king.」

Arthur turns, frown at the ready, lips already parting on, 「What did you-」

But there’s no woman there, in the grove (in the tree), any longer. Only silence and the shimmer of setting sunlight shifting through starkly needled branches.

His hand feels damp; sticky. When Arthur looks down, it is to see crushed yew berries staining his skin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please, please, please never ride a motorbike without correct protective gear!


	32. Interlude: Elfrida

The nights, though warm, are drawing in. Elfrida endures them, because she has no option. Analise, Ringo, Cilla – none of them seem keen on keeping a functionally up-to-date address book. (Things being what they are with kidnappings, that’s probably no bad thing.)

While Elfrida waits, she frets. That, and she works. The lines of code that once brought her such comfort now just seem to taunt. How can she understand such abstract glory, yet remain incapable of gathering more simple answers?

‘Leon’, she repeats to herself. That’s the man that she’s now searching for. (An undying man, if one is to believe the hype – and yes, she does consider the Dread Pirate Roberts scenario.) He is called Leon. No last name. No address. No photograph.

He travels.

When the phone rings on a dark December night, Elfrida’s expecting more smoke and daggers; perhaps another meeting in an unfamiliar café or even a pre-arranged dead-drop in a library somewhere.

Instead she gets travel instructions. Of a sort.

“You’re giving me an entire forest?” She can’t believe her ears. “On the other side of the world?”

Her only reply is the click of a disconnected line.

Elfrida waits three days for her visa to clear, then pays for the flight she’s been watching climb in cost for hours now. Flies economy class around the world, stopping off in Dubai and Sydney and Auckland. Watches tourists shocked by the cost of a beer in an airport, when they’re ordering in the middle of a Muslim country from the only café open at midnight. Later, sees people panicking about biosecurity and whether their ‘special exceptions’ will pass.

Wonders when everyone else became so frivolous. (When she became so impatient.)

Her back aches and she’s too wound up to even pretend to enjoy the food served on the various flights. She wishes for more comfort, or a reclining chair, or, simply, enough elbowroom that the people she’s sandwiched between wouldn’t catch her every time they turned.

She has thirty thousand in the bank and can’t spend it all on flying. It needs to last. She’s pretty certain that, even if her resignation isn’t accepted, a failure to turn up for however long this takes means she’s going to get fired.

Arriving in Wellington, Elfrida hires a car, buys boots that are practical for walking, and then curls up to sleep in the back of the car. Because napping might be a delay, but putting herself in hospital having wrapped her car, sleep-deprived, around a tree will be a greater one.

She manages five hours then drives south toward Tongariro, before diverting to the adjacent forest area. She barely stops as she goes.

When she reaches the closest town, Elfrida takes a room at the only place she sees there, because she looks even more wild-eyed than she feels. A shower doesn’t exactly make her human, but it’s the longest break she can allow herself before she walks out, heading towards the reserves’ station.

And that’s as far as her information takes her: that station. The last time anyone heard from ‘Leon’ it had been there.

Fourteen years ago.

It’s all so absurdly futile that Elfrida would laugh at herself if she could. Who would even remember a stranger passing by so long before? Yet, futility aside, Elfrida’s incapable of not trying.

Why had no one ever told her that desperation tasted of too much caffeine and tingled with electric agitation under one’s skin?

The station is a two-hour walk from her room. The terrain to reach it is… not exactly rough. But it’s more up than across; and more up-down, than simple up. It feels like she’s covering twice the distance needed.

There’s a boardwalk that she’s meant to follow, in between sections of rocky path that crosses striated schist outcrops. When the trees close in, they do so in earnest. Huge towering structures in vibrant shades of green and shadow that seem to trap time around them.

Then, abruptly, the trees fall back. There’s a river and a small bridge and, on the other side, a sturdy-looking pre-fab building.

A woman in a wide brimmed hat is outside the building checking something in a box against something on a clip board and-

It should be mortifying, walking over and rambling away about a man she doesn’t really know to a stranger she definitely doesn’t know.

She sounds like a jilted lover. Or possibly in unexpected child. It all rather depends on their apparent age difference. (How does mortal compare to immortal on that scale anyway?)

Elfrida doesn’t care. She forces the words out, expecting nothing.

“You need to slow down a little. Look, I’m Hannah. Have you got water with you? No? You’d best come inside.”

Hannah with the hat manages to get a glass of water down Elfrida, before refilling it. Elfrida hadn’t realised she’d felt so thirsty. When had the weather turned so clement?

While Elfrida drinks, Hannah watches. She has a direct type of consideration. Even Elfrida’s aware that she’s being weighed up.

“I’m not crazy,” she offers. Which is probably not that convincing an argument.

“Yea, nah.” Hannah offers, apparently unconvinced. Then, “You should grab another glass. Wait here a moment.” She disappears into what looks like a back office. Elfrida wonders if she has a satellite phone in there, and is currently phoning for backup to help control the strange woman who’s accosted her.

Instead, when Hannah comes back, she’s got a folded up map. “He was last seen out here.”

“Sorry?” Elfrida finds herself blinking into Hannah’s calm gaze. “You _know_ Leon?” More than that, she _isn’t_ mocking Elfrida’s comment about how he’d ‘lived a bit longer than he looks like he has… probably’?

Hannah shrugs. “He’s been involved in with the fire fighters out here for… oh… sixty, seventy years. Doesn’t spend that much time around the cities for obvious reasons.”

“You _know_ he’s immortal?”

“Stranger things happen.” Is the calm reply.

Elfrida’s pretty certain stranger things _don’t_ , but she doesn’t argue with the sentiment. Instead she looks at the map over the other woman’s shoulder.

If she’s hoping for a little hand-drawn arrow reading ‘Leon’s place’, then she’s doomed to be disappointed. “That’s a rather vague area.”

“Not many paths either,” Hannah agrees. “And the ones that are there, you’re not really meant to leave. Some conservation areas,” she indicates areas of the chart, “and some sacred land.” More gestures.

_Don’t leave the path._

“This sounds like the start of a horror movie.”

Hannah laughs. “Don’t worry. The biggest things out there are the trees.”

“As the trees are huge, that’s not reassuring.”

Hannah ignores that, which is perhaps for the best. “You need to be better prepared before heading out there. You’re going to be a fair bit of tramping.”

“I’ll come back tomorrow,” Elfrida promises.

“There’s no hurry.”

But there is.

*

Elfrida struggles to fall asleep, then stays under for nine hours solid, waking to a slight headache and the strange sensation of not being quite in the right place. When she looks around, her surroundings come back into focus.

She’s exactly where she needs to be.

That morning she takes her time, gathering up the supplies that she needs and trying not to notice the cost adding up. One, in particular, is harder than the other’s to acquire; but then, it’s not a standard part of hiking kit. She tells herself the cost is worth it, but feels like she can see the future plotted out, forming a graph before her. There’s time on one axis and, running against it, her remaining balance. When that money hits zero – when Elfrida’s out of options and out of funds – that might not be the day Mari does on, but it’s the day Mari’s done.

No one else is looking.

(Can she beg her family for more money? Ask them to cash in their savings and pensions, to bankrupt themselves, ruining their lives, so that she can keep searching? Elfrida will – is – doing it without second thought. But her parents? Edward? Is one life – even if it’s her wife’s – life worth destroying everyone else’s?)

No one else can help.

She needs to find Mari before her funds to do so are gone.

Leon’s somewhere out in the forest. They don’t exactly know where. It’s up to her to find him in all that vastness.

Elfrida takes the vague directions Hannah offered and sets out. As she goes, she pulls out her megaphone, takes a moment to accept that this probably wasn’t what Hannah would want, and then yells. Because if she can’t find him, then he’ll have to find her. And she might sound crazy and she might scare him away.

But she’s out of other options.


	33. Part 4, Chapter 4:  Season’s Turn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for mentions of ableist language/presumptions.
> 
> Also a warning for violence. This is at a comparable level to the TV show.

After meeting the old woman, it feels like something should change. And yet, as his scrapes and scabs heal, Arthur finds himself settling deeper than ever before into his patterns. He wakes before the sun rises to stretch and drive himself through long-known drills. He works doing whatever is needed on whichever farm he’s followed Florin to. He charges his phone with both power and credit to continue his learning. Language, law, history: there’s a lot to cover. He cooks; cleans; washes up dishes and bundles up sheets for laundry. Someone suggests playing rugby.

The sun shines down; summer stretching almost eternally, even as the leaves start to brown and, on the bend of the road where Arthur came off his bike, the bushes explode with berries.

It all changes at four fifteen on a Tuesday afternoon. Arthur picks up a lightweight jacket, thinking he might need it to keep the sun at bay, then ends up donning it to hold back the chill.

The season doesn’t linger any longer. Instead there is rain and cold; enough of both that the ground churns to mud, sucking at every step he takes, until even the fun of the games are gone. Well-dressed or badly, Arthur seems to end each day chilled to the bone and damp. He’s not the only one.

Trouble piles in, faster than the raindrops. There’s a fire in a sorting shed in the midlands. In the north east, one of the banks of the river they’re dredging collapses, trapping Victor under an overturned digger. It’s not how Arthur wanted to practice his first aid for crushing injuries; he’s grateful for the speedy response of the paramedics and, counter-intuitively, fire fighters who rescued Victor from the quagmire. Two days after Victor’s released from hospital, Marius gets beaten up on a night out.

Despite the troubles and damp, Arthur sleeps well. While he’s always exhausted, the daily cycle of being worn down to his bones and then resting leaves him sated and strangely calm. It’s beginning to feel as though, possibly, he knows where he stands in this modern world.

Still, it’s no work for an old man; as his life stretches out ahead of him, Arthur wonders if this is _truly_ what he should – could – keep on doing year after year.

Andrei has plans. Mihai too.

Running this endeavour clearly _is_ Florin’s plan.

Arthur watches them – aye, and the people in the towns they pass through or in the service stations they stop at – wondering what he should do. In the long run.

“Hey! Earth to Arthur.” Arthur bats Andrei’s hand away, irritated at having fingers snapped at him. They’re sitting in a bus stop (a partially enclosed structure that’s doing little to hold back the driving rain) waiting to make a connection into Scarborough. “It’s time to go.”

The bus is barely visible and still half a mile distant. It’s clearly not time to go _yet_. “It’s dry here.”

“It’ll be dry on the bus.”

Which makes absolutely no sense; why get any damper than they have to, just so that they can dry off (badly) again?

Arthur gives Andrei a more careful look. The other man’s fidgeting back and forth within the confines of the stop, chafing his hands together as if colder than the weather alone accounts for.

It’s on the tip of Arthur’s tongue to ask if Andrei’s okay, but he bites it down. Clearly there’s something on the other man’s mind. Something beyond merely catching the bus.

“Do you have the list?” He asks instead, hoping to provide a distraction.

Andrei gives him a slightly panicked look. “I thought you had it?”

Ignoring the fact that Arthur has seen Andrei fold their companions’ shopping list into his wallet, it would hardly be a disaster if the paper were forgotten. It hadn’t been a long list: coffee of a particular brand (two variants); a favoured medicine for flu; tights for Elena; a new phone charger for David; and three bottles of liquid – Laphroaig whiskey (which looks expensive, but Mihai swears by it), rhubarb gin (Andrei had seemed to take great delight in teasing Victor about that one), and summer berry scented bleach (Arthur hasn’t asked Alex why the scent matters so much).

“How can you remember all that?” Andrei asks, herding Arthur onto the bus and opening his wallet to pay. He pauses for a moment before pulling out a note, looking at the contents (presumably startled to find the list there, or possibly double checking it against Arthur’s memory).

“There’s not that much to remembering.” Andrei gives him a strange look, but in the chaos of sitting, Arthur assumes that it’s going to be forgotten. Unfortunately, the bus journey isn’t short.

“So you just memorize random lists of things? What did we buy last time we want to the shops?”

Cheese, butter, leaks (three), two dozen eggs, two pounds of apples, two pints of milk. “I’m not certain,” he hedges, beginning to suspect he now knows how Merlin felt when asked to juggle eggs following his success with Queen Annis’s request.

Andrei gives him a considering look. “You’re lying,” he declares. “Also, you’re a terrible liar. I thought that politicians were meant to be all smooth.”

Arthur knows what Ginger thinks of politicians; clearly it’s a common sentiment. “I was a king,” he corrects, “and had to remember many of things.” The generalities of treaties; the names and titles of visiting dignitaries; random details from woodland quests where there was neither parchment nor ink for writing, nor, for that matter, a flat surface to scribe at.

And yes, on one or two occasions he might have needed Merlin to fill in the blanks.

“I don’t think that’s the explanation you think it is.”

*

Scarborough is beautiful. The sea surges, wild and endless, while the town stretched out to take full advantage of the view.

The wind, alas, is lazy: it cuts straight through Arthur, rather than taking the time to go around him.

“I think that’s the last of it.” This time when Andrei chafes his hands, there’s no mistaking the fact that he’s cold. Yet, despite that, he doesn’t indicate being ready to head back to the bus stop.

“Pub?” Arthur suggests, though he’s spent more than he should have today on cheese and wine for the rest of the week.

When Andrei nods, it’s with the distracted air of someone agreeing more to an internal conversation than the one taking place in the real world. “How about a sandwich instead?”

“A sandwich?” They’ve already eaten before heading out.

“I know a nice place.”

*

It _is_ a nice sandwich shop.

It’s also blatantly clear that they’re not here for the cuisine. From the moment Andrei walks in through the door until the moment they’re ushered out, Gabi is the clear centre of attention.

She’s beautiful in her poise and good-humour; pleased to see Andrei, but with a certain reserve that Arthur finds discordant. She and Andrei talk in rapid fire Romanian, leaving Arthur lost, dependent upon catching a stray word here and there. Putting aside the fact that it’s a disquieting reminder of his first weeks after Avalon, Arthur only bears their rudeness for the clear fact that there’s something bubbling below the surface.

That, and the fact that the prawn filling is delicious and deserves to be eaten when served.

After, when the door has swung shut behind them, Arthur doesn’t even have to ask.

Andrei pulls a face. “I should probably have let you know that would be… a bit…” he waggles his fingers „weird.‟

Abandoned step-sister, illegitimate child of your cheating parent, or jilted mother of _your_ children, Arthur wants to ask. Manages not to.

“The former missus.” Andrei pulls a face. “An expensive mistake.”

“Um.” Arthur doesn't really know what to say to that. “You must still have something you are fond over?” They had seemed… not hostile.

“Not really. But she’s a good woman and I should… Check. Just in case.”

Their steps turn in the direction of the bus stop. Arthur shifts the bags he’s carrying from one hand to the other; his fingers feel like ice.

Andrei looks… stressed.

The light is starting to fade from the sky so Arthur holds his silence. Evening can have a strange effect on some; engendering a sense of comfort and aiding sharing.

“My mother hopes we will reconcile. Remarry. She really likes Gaby and, well, my father left her, so…” He sighs. “But we won’t.”

For a moment Arthur sees again his fiancé in the arms of his knight. Can remember seeing his childhood companion and rival take their father’s throne. Remembers… pretty much every moment of his interaction with Mordred: the hunted child he’d chosen the protect; the earnest youth he’d been pleased to knight; his killer. Love is never simple. “Complicated.”

Andrei laughs wretchedly. “Not really. Just disappointing.”

“But you loved her once.” It’s a conundrum Arthur’s well familiar with; the inability of feelings to simply evaporate when no longer appropriate.

“No.” Andrei shatters Arthur’s misunderstanding. “I thought… But I was wrong. You know how it is. Foreign country; you’re homesick. Then there’s a woman with shared experience. You think that having the same roots is the same as having the same... leaves... the same future. That stuff.”

“And you didn’t.”

“We didn't.” Andrei gives him a very serious look. “Don’t make my mistake. Don’t marry someone just because they’re from your old country.” This time when he laughs, Andrei sounds more normal: “Not that that should be hard in your case.”

*

Andrei’s still laughing and joking when they arrive back at the farm, his earlier nerves gone now that he’s confronted his proverbial dragon.

It’s laughter that dies the instant they round the corner to the farm and see the blue flashing lights.

Arthur feels his chest clench. He’s not certain why this colour, of all possibilities, has been chosen to splash across the disasters of the living world, but the hue lends an eery unnaturalness to everything it touches. He wonders who it heralds ill for this time.

As he wonders, Arthur’s already running. He starts before he’s finished scanning for danger, but Andrei passes him, heedless to anything around them.

Marius is being loaded into the back of an ambulance, Victor hovering nearby, face pale and splattered lightly in blood.

Andrei’s shouting; demanding information. But Arthur just looks from the kindly blank faces of the paramedics to the way that Marius is curled up. Marius. Again…

Then Arthur looks at the crowd milling around the farm machinery.

Florin is by one particular tractor; kneeling to get a good look at something, but very deliberately not touching anything. He’s focused on one of the winches. Arthur heads straight to his side and waits for him to finish his inspection. When he does, his face is grim.

“Deliberate or not?” Arthur asks.

Florin snorts, but there’s no humour in his face. “It _looks_ accidental.”

Arthur gives the winch system a careful once-over. The coil of twisted steel wire is chaotic; unwinding and spilling across the surrounding area. One ‘end’ shows the three constituent fibres have sprung apart. “All three?” But it’s a question he doesn’t need answered; Florin’s face mirrors his own scepticism.

Arthur tries to imagine the force unleased by the snapping of a rope made of _steel_. “Marius’s hand?”

“In the paramedic’s box.” Which isn’t exactly the question Arthur had been asking, but answers it non-the-less.

“There have been a lot of accidents recently.”

“There have indeed.” Florin nods. “They need to stop.” His gaze drops from Arthur’s face to his hands and Arthur is transported back to the night they met; to his knuckles raw as they’d talked around the troubles of Arthur’s morning while sharing wine and cake.

He’s not going to pretend he doesn’t know what Florin is asking: “Agreed. Do we go now?”

*

They actually leave twenty minutes later, after ensuring that Marius is safety on his way to hospital. Or, as safe as he can be, now that he’s been crippled; doomed to spend the rest of his days unsuited to the work he’s currently engaged in.

It’s a cold awakening from Arthur’s morning musings over his own old age.

„They may try to reattach it,‟ Florin is reassuring his shocked team. He speaks the words like he means them, but Arthur’s put on enough fronts to feel doubt. „Now I have to go. Gheorghe, Arthur. Let’s go.‟

It turns out that they have a long drive; nearly ninety minutes. Florin doesn’t explain his understanding of the situation as they travel and Gheorghe doesn’t ask. It leaves Arthur feeling claustrophobic; pinned in by the assumptions he can’t help but make. He’s beginning to see why Merlin had determined to ferret out every last detail of Arthur’s plans even if all he could do was use them to worry.

Except, of course, that Merlin had been the most powerful warlock alive.

What had that even _meant_? Fallen branches. Lightening strikes. What _had_ Merlin been doing, creeping about behind Arthur’s back while lying to his face?

All of his _plans_! For Camelot and beyond!

How much more could he have achieved if only Merlin had been honest with him and-

When they arrive, Arthur could laugh in bitter irony. The club is called the Albion.

Florin turns off the engine and double-checks that the gearstick is in neutral. Without the regular sweep of the wipers, rain striking the windscreen blurs the view into a wash of shadow and bright light. Florin looks out as though the downpour were ended and the street clear. Then he turns to Arthur. “These people are not nice.” His gaze is very direct. “They are dangerous.”

Marius is missing a hand.

Victor nearly got crushed.

_Anyone_ could have been caught in that fire.

Arthur wonders if it’s too late to ask what the bigger picture is here, then decides that, if he’s going to get drawn into this battle, however it may prove to take place, he’d better understand the implications. It hasn’t escaped his attention that Florin isn’t taking the time to check on Gheorghe. Presumably this isn’t their first such altercation. “Who is doing this?”

Florin sighs. “Marius likes to gamble.”

“He owes money?” That makes things more complicated. Clearly attacks are not the correct way of collecting on a debt, but if these people think that they are the wronged party then persuading them otherwise is going to be difficult.

“It’s all been repaid.”

“They are not thinking this.” Repaid debts don’t end in people losing limbs.

“They changed the interest rate. Again.”

It’s really not the time to go asking what an interest rate is. Or to add it to his list of words to look up later.

There will be repercussions from getting involved in this. Maybe. Probably.

Victor was innocent, yet only escaped being crushed to death by good fortune and soft river loam.

“Let’s go,” Arthur opens his door and steps out into the rain.

*

If Arthur had stopped to think things out a little longer, then being made to wait in the club while Florin took Gheorghe into the meeting wouldn’t have come as a surprise. It’s not like Arthur hasn’t conducted delicate negotiations before; he knows all about the balance between a show of force and the application of reason.

It’s just that he’s not been so out of the thick of things since being crowned prince. Maybe not even before.

Gwen said she used to eavesdrop when there was no one to see and report her. As she’d been his queen at the time of her confession and, more to the point, they’d been sharing sweet nothings in the warmth of their bed, Arthur hadn’t made much of that comment. He’d thought he’d been magnanimous.

(He’d also been striving to avoid hypocrisy. It’s not like he was unaware of _Merlin’s_ boundless, inappropriate and mostly-unpunished curiosity. And Merlin was only – _could_ only be – Arthur’s servant.)

Now he finds himself wishing he had privacy in which to copy their lead. Alas, the club is, if not thronging, then still busy.

He tells himself that he has patience enough to stand and wait, but the truth is, the last time Arthur had any interest in playing a mere guard he’d been seven or eight. Standing, as opposed to action, isn’t a skill he’s ever had much interest in developing.

He paces.

_Stop_.

It’s a woman’s voice, bitten short with misery. If it hadn’t been for the laughter echoing her, then _maybe_ Arthur would have been able to ignore that word.

Instead he opens the door and-

Honestly, it’s a scene as old as time. A woman (beautiful or not; young or old; but always in some manner lesser in station). A man (or, as here, two). A pretence at privacy. His face twisting into faked geniality. Her body saying please-just-ignore-me, though her mouth is now shut and her face, wretched, shows a certain calculation as to trouble-now-versus-down-the-road.

It’s so bloody infuriating that humanity seems unwilling to outgrow _this_.

“Get out.” It’s one of the men who beats Arthur to the phrase. That doesn’t exactly calm Arthur down.

He knows that he should stop feeling anger. Ann had been very clear on that. Arthur should work to identify the other emotions hidden within it and so actually improve the underlying situation rather than get trapped in a futile cycle of rage. But today?

Sometimes anger is just anger; and it needs another way out. “You should get out.” He tells them. “Because right now, I want hurting someone.”

*

He doesn’t get a thank you from the woman.

Arthur’s not really expecting one, considering the fraught situation. Admittedly, he also isn’t expecting the slap or to hear that, apparently, she has two children at home and now likely no job. That he’s made everything _even worse_.

She slams the door on her way out.

Gwen would say-

Arthur never spoke with Gwen about things like this.

_Merlin_ would say that sometimes you just have to do the right thing. Even if it ends up going wrong. That it will all sort out in time.

Arthur’s apparently given it fifteen centuries of time and nothing seems to have been sorted out.

He returns to the main club, wondering if Florin will be done, only to find himself in the centre of a group of men who, casually clothed or not, are most definitely guards. The woman is with them; although it might be more accurate to say that she’s as detained as he is.

“See?” She snaps.

“Let her go,” Arthur says, while quickly adding up the odds. Four newcomers. Two injured-but-likely-rousing men in the room behind him. Plus however many more in the Albion.

It’s actually a surprise when the woman is released. “Don’t bother coming in tomorrow to pick up your takings, Saph.” The man speaking doesn’t look obviously in charge, but Saph is released anyway. She gives Arthur one last poisonous-yet-worried look and then, literally, runs.

It’s a relief to have her out of the way, even if it does leave Arthur as the sole focus of attention.

“As for you…”

*

Later, Arthur can’t quite remember how everything led to this point. It often gets to him like that in the heat of battle. Pain, fear, shock, rage: the only time he’s ever been left more uncertain of his memory was after that strange attempt at eloping with… Sophie?... Arthur would love to know how much he ended up drinking to get that blackout drunk. Apparently enough that _Merlin_ had been able to get the drop on him.

Arthur does remember being ushered into the office Florin had previously stepped into. Remembers looking at the odds, which were now seven to three, and thinking them much improved. Florin had moved first and then-

Arthur’s holding a gun. It’s aimed at the man standing behind the desk. The room is suddenly in breathless stillness.

“You’ve got the safety on, boy.”

“I have no idea what a safety is.” Gods! He only knows what a gun is from TV. The only ones he’s seen in the real world are the longer variants kept on farms for vermin.

“Catch to the side.” Desk-man, presumably the person in charge, sounds self-assured, almost amused. As Arthur’s been able to hit a target with a knife at five paces and an arrow at fifty since he was seven, it’s a strange attitude to assume. At less than two paces distant, Arthur can’t see how it’s possible to miss, even allowing for the unfamiliar weapon.

“Thanks.” He knocks the safety off.

Then he looks at Florin. Because technically this isn’t his negotiation.

“Let us draw a line under this unpleasantness. You have been repaid your money. This evening’s short… scuffle… does not seem too much for a missing hand, does it? Let us be done.”

Arthur had been thinking more along the lines of insisting on the payment of a fee against Marius’s future poverty.

“Come now,” Desk-man smirks, “we both know your boy isn’t going to actually pull that trigger.”

Based on its similarity to his crossbow, Arthur had assumed that the trigger was depressed rather than pulled, but is willing to put that down to an English glitch. Then he realises what’s been said of his integrity.

“You think I’m unwilling to kill you?” He’s so startled, he almost falls back into his mother tongue. “Really?”

Florin and Gheorghe are not alone in giving him a worried look, but desk-man seems determined to insult Arthur’s mettle. “Pull the trigger. I dare you to.”

“You dare me-?” Arthur shrugs. “Fine.”

The bang is really _very_ loud; the weapon’s recoil utterly unfamiliar. It takes Arthur a heartbeat longer to train it back on target than he’s happy with, but he _does_ get back on target.

His target is now curled in on his arm, making pained whimpers. Arthur wonders whether being shot with a gun truly hurts _that much_ more than by a bow, because, frankly, he’s been shot a lot with arrows over the years and he’s pretty certain he never made such a fuss over it.

“Agree or die.” There’s no need to mention that he seems to be a palm-width off in his aim. “Oh. And you’re going to change club name from Albion. Yes?”


	34. Part 4, Chapter 5:  Ice

As December arrives, so too do days that are short and bitter. Endless nights aren’t the only darkness that stalks Arthur. Since the Albion, rumour and innuendo are never far away. For all that Florin said to 'just not talk about' what transpired, everyone at the farm seems to know. Or, at any rate, to know enough.

It probably doesn’t help that they moved jobs as soon as possible. Despite Marius lingering in his hospital bed, they’d packed up to take work at a location several hours to the north. It’s the first site Arthur’s worked where they actually interact with livestock – mostly mucking them out – and no one seems keen on the work. It’s a switch that reeks of a desperation even stronger than the manure; a strained last-minute change; a departure from Florin’s normally impeccable planning.

“Do not worry,” Florin had said _that_ night, in the van, driving back. “Damian will not contact the police. For a man like him, it would be too much of a…” But for once Florin’s carefully precise grasp of language seems to fail him. Not that it matters – Arthur had already caught on to the situation.

He keeps forgetting just how averse the modern world is to settling things honourably.

Well he’s being reminded every day since. They’ve switched out farms _again_ two days prior. Andrei, finally acting on the new guardedness haunting his eyes, has somehow convinced Mihai to trade rooms with Arthur. Now Arthur has the ‘privilege’ of his own locking door and the privacy that offers.

It feels less like privilege and more like being locked out.

Worse yet, without the sounds of others around him, Arthur wakes choking down panic more often than he sleeps the night through. Sometimes he wishes he could just forget the past. Or, at least, Avalon.

All this ill-will over a little bit of blood at a negotiation conduced miles away! It seems like a lot of fuss when no one even died.

But then, he needs to stop using Camelot as his reference point for normal; it isn’t. Not any more. And even there, a farmhand would be brought to court for bloodying an inn-keep. Arthur’s overseen punishment for more than one of those found taking the king’s justice into their own hands.

He needed to remember that he’s not the one upholding the law now.

Of course, it would also help if the current laws made sense. How can protecting your companions be illegal?

In the cold isolation of his private room, Arthur struggles through online message boards and forums of law; they detail procedures which seem to vary from year-to-year and kingdom-to-country without the reason that the gods gave the seasons. Arthur’s still not quite certain where he went wrong, but the way Elena no longer meets his eyes as she hands out flasks of steaming soup makes it clear that he has, indeed, gone very wrong.

For the first time since meeting her, he doesn’t ask Ginger to clarify the situation. Arthur doesn’t think he’s weak, but if she shuns him too…

He doesn’t to lose her... companionship? insight?

He’s not even certain what Ginger is to him. As a king he’d had knights, advisors, servants. But now?

She’s a _friend_ , something in the back of his mind tries to remind him. Like Pedro and Raffi. Like Andrei.

But it’s been weeks since he heard from Pedro and Raffi. As for Andrei, the sudden cold snap in their interaction has brought into sharp contrast just how they met. Andrei is Florin’s cousin; told to keep an eye on the new guy. And now Florin is… if not exactly happy with Arthur, then at least certain of his motivations. Andrei’s surveillance is clearly no longer needed; he can return to a more distant acquaintanceship if he so wishes. He clearly so wishes.

Friendship doesn’t seem that great. Which is more or less what his father had told Arthur, though Uther had couched it in terms of betrayal and manipulation.

Once, there’d been Merlin. But with how everything there turned out he’s hardly a counterargument to the connivances hidden within such relationships.

*

Now they’re in the north, it snows. On occasion. Mostly the cold is evident in the frost working its way across the cabin windows, or the ice shimmering on the stream that leads off to the loch. But this morning brings a curtain of white; it’s snowed heavily during the night.

Breakfast is a silent, tense affair. Mihai and Andrei are polite but withdrawn, and Arthur is relieved when it’s ended and he can pull on a pair of heavy gloves. Is more relieved yet, that the gloves have fully dried overnight. Collecting sprouts today will be cold work, though anything will feel warmer than their meal.

In the fields, Arthur keeps to himself and works as quickly as he can without risking his numb fingers against the sharp knife edge. Every stalk collected is another excuse to bend his back and avoid eye contact.

The days, alas, are short and the evening work in the sheds – separating sprouts from their stalk – doesn’t allow for such distance.

That might be why he picks the furthest flank of the field to work along, looking out over the frozen stream to the wheat field beyond.

There’s a hole in the ice.

For a moment Arthur just frowns at the opening into the running water. It’s a strange thing to see, for he’s glanced up at the river time and again that afternoon without noting the gap. It’s possible one of the others had thrown a stone out of their way, cracking the sheet. (Silently?) Or that some wild ducks had been paddling there, keeping a feeding hole open. (Arthur’s seen no ducks today.)

He starts to step forward for a closer look, but there are stalks in the way and his time is better spent in harvest. Bending, Arthur knocks snow from the nearest one, raises his blade and-

That was definitely a splash. Yet, on the ice, nothing can be seen.

Arthur glances in the opposite direction, hoping to see a reaction from the others in the field. Elena is in the tractor’s trailer, lining up the stalks. Mihai and David are off to one side, talking as they work. No one has looked over.

There’s another splash and, in the hole, something moves.

Arthur starts over. Looks at the knife in his hand, and carefully puts it down; he’s not going to make that mistake again. He’s not risking starting more fights.

Besides, it’s probably nothing. Maybe an otter playing about. Or a hippocampus caught by the winter.

A hand, female and slender, crests the water briefly, then sinks below.

Arthur runs; reaches the riverbank and slides down until his boots hit the ice. He’s heard of children near drowned in winter streams yet saved by determined action. Time is of the essence.

Behind him, he hears someone call his name, voice sharp with alarm.

The trick to ice, as Arthur’s learned the hard way, is to spread his weight. At least he’s not also wearing mail and plate to further increase his load. Still, sliding forward on his belly with chill working its way into his jacket, he does wonder how stable the ice near to the hole will be and what he can do if the woman/child doesn’t find the strength to resurface once more.

(And just where did she come from? How had she managed to get out onto the river and fall through unnoticed while the field besides was worked?)

Arthur’s actually got his fingers at the hole’s edge; water soaking through his gloves to chill his fingers, when he feels his left toes go through the ice.

It’s sheet that he’s just _crawled over_ and it seems impossible to him that _that_ location of all, could prove to be a weak point.

As Arthur’s entire leg goes through the ice, he has a moment to wonder whether he’ll also be another of the things ‘they just don’t talk about’. Then the rest of him follows his leg and the shock of the cold drives any thought from him save that-

He doesn’t want to die; never has.

But at least in the past it had been for a purpose. For Camelot, and normally with the comfort of Merlin nearby – Anhora’s ‘poison’, the black knight’s challenge, Mordred’s blade.

This is just…

He’ll be ungrieved. Forgotten.

Purposeless.

Not purposeless – there’s the girl. She must be down here somewhere and-

But the water is murky and dark; a combination of the gathering shadows cast by the steep banks and the low winter sun, and the churned-up mud. Needing to orient himself, Arthur strikes up and-

Ice.

His hand hits it before he hits the air. When he wastes his precious time striking the surface again, it doesn’t crack, but only drives him back down into the cold and the dark.

Arthur tells himself he needs to head up; to work his way along until he finds where he came in. That he can get free.

But his lungs ache for air and his skin is on fire with cold.

Worst of all, he cannot hold himself at the ice face. The water is dragging him down. It’s-

It’s happening again. His armour is heavy around him; something that should bring safety instead trapping him in his doom, binding him to the lakebed though he can see the sunlight shimmering above, bright and welcoming. The water glitters with darting blue, but it’s that golden light that calls out to Arthur – the sun; the surface.

The land. _His_ land.

He’d crawled then, to escape Avalon. Had fought his way up the muddy incline until he was kneeling in the shallows on a warm summer’s day, gasping in air and-

But he’s still in the water.

Gods! But has this all been Sidhe lies and mind tricks again?

Why not? Why would they keep him – a mere mortal, king or not – for any reason at all, save as sport? A creature isn’t released, once its torment grows tedious. Why would the Sidhe send him back to the living?

They must have a plan. Something that-

He must be confused and-

There was a girl.

That thought comes to Arthur quite clearly: that there is a girl in the water. Or a woman. There are no Sidhe out here, only her. And Arthur needs to save her.

He needs to let go of the past; focus.

Yet, in that instant all Arthur can remember is Merlin’s face, soaked with tears. Merlin’s face and the strength of his arms around Arthur. Merlin’s fingers, clutching tight at his own and-

There _are_ actually fingers in Arthur’s.

Real fingers. Women’s fingers.

He opens his eyes, wondering when they’d fallen closed. And as he does, he can see. Oh, not far, but far enough.

_It’s you._ Arthur says. Tries to say. Water swirls into his mouth, but, strangely, not any further as if held back from choking him. _You’re the woman in the rain._

It _is_ the woman in the rain. Her long, dark hair curls through the water until it’s lost in the murk. Her eyes are wide and, ever so slightly, worried. Her lips… She’s smiling. Not amused, exactly, but like she’s pleased, or maybe fond.

The light around them is strange and wan; it seems to glow from the very ground beneath their feet. Only when Arthur glances down, does he realise that it comes through the ice; that they’re ‘standing’ upside down, held still despite the torrent of water bending reeds around them. It’s at about this point that he realises he doesn’t long to breathe.

It’s ridiculously clear that something magical is taking place. Releasing her hand still seems like a bad idea.

_Arthur_. Her lips form the familiar shape of his name. More shapes follow, only one of which he knows: _King._

He’s not cold any more – maybe a sign of hypothermia; maybe more witchcraft – but her knowledge unnerves him. For a moment he wonders if he’s meant to save her from this torment, or whether he needs saving from her. _Who are you?_ , but the water will not carry his words.

Maybe she understands him, or maybe she has her own purpose. Images start to swirl across the flood between them. Grains of grit and fragments of bark: they are entrained to bulk out a message already spelt in colourful witchcraft.

A bridge; collapsing as the ground it rises from crumbles away.

A small raptor – a kestrel or merlin – hovering amidst a small flurry of silt.

A crown, golden, being spun out into separate threads that tangle and twist and-

_I don’t understand._

She frowns, but, if nothing else, seems to comprehend his lack of comprehension.

He sees himself. An image made small as a doll. His armour, his cloak, Excalibur: all rendered in perfect exactness.

She knows him. Has known him since _then_.

Another nymph? Or something else?

She has the doll rest in a boat, and the boat sink down into what can only be Avalon. The hunting bird hovers above and a rainbow stretches out, crossing both. Gold glitters within the rainbow and then the colours start to fade. The rainbow becomes a massive span of steel and concrete, its pillars crumbling and its cables snapping with whiplash force and-

Marius’s hand couldn’t be saved.

Arthur waves his free hand through the image, scattering it. _Words_. He shapes his lips carefully. _Words._ He simply can not go guessing at the answers that this lady of the waters so clearly holds. He needs actual, solid, answers.

She blinks, startled. Arthur fears that he’s offended her.

Ice swirls through the water. When it forms, it shapes letters. Proper letters, not these modern cut-down simplicities.

_The world is dying._

If he were still breathing, Arthur might choke on that bold assertion. The lady isn’t done.

_But you have been returned. Save it._

If Arthur could laugh, he could. He can’t even save himself! _No,_ his mouth forms the word; not truly a refusal to help, so much as denying that he can be enough.

_Find Merlin._

_Merlin’s dead._ It’s been fifteen centuries. Yes, Arthur’s found more beings apparently alive from his time than he would have expected when he left Sidhe care. But they’re the (two) exceptions. Merlin’s just a man for all that he was a warlock.

_Merlin’s missing. Find him._ And then, the ice forming slower than before, as though the lady were hesitant. _He did wait for you._

Merlin was alive? Merlin _waited_?

For fifteen centuries? Arthur feels sick. _That’s-_ , but he cannot think of words strong enough to say what such a vigil is.

Then Arthur lurches; a movement that has nothing to do with horror and everything to do with the fact that there’s something around his ankle dragging him down (pulling him up). _Wait!_

_You have to go, King Arthur._

_But Merlin-_ Where was he? When did he go missing? Where had he been waiting and why? Whatever had he been doing for all of this time and-

_Find him. Save us._ And then: _Please find him_ : words reflected with intensity across the lady’s face.

There’s a flurry of motion; Arthur’s on the surface again and so cold that he’s warm once more. His gaze is blurry; the sky little more than swirling colour interrupted by dark forms that Arthur thinks might be people he should know.

Merlin’s alive.

No. Merlin's missing. Gone.

And, now, it all makes sense to him: Arthur knows why he’s returned. He knows why Avalon saved him.


	35. Part 4, Chapter 6:  The Train Station

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for transphobic behaviour.

Hostage situations; they’re tricky.

Sitting on a cold platform bench in winter’s afternoon darkness, sipping at the cheap takeaway mint tea he’d picked up from the all-night café down the road, Arthur watches the scene unravelling across the tracks. A young woman – probably still a child by this era’s way of thinking – in a glittering jacket is trying to get her suitcase back from a gaggle of youths who are ‘helping’ her.

“You still there?” Arthur hums an affirmative and Andrei (whose temperament thawed towards Arthur at about the same time as Arthur’s toes did) resumes his chatter; voice warm and close over the phone despite the distance between them. He’s saying something about helping his mum decorate a tree; starts a hesitant comment that’s not quite an offer for Arthur to travel over and join them for their festivities.

Arthur’s attention is otherwise engaged.

The next train on his platform is in twenty minutes. (He's not waiting for it.) From what he can read on the distant LED panel, the next (also penultimate) train on the woman’s platform is in forty-five minutes. That’s a lot of time to wait around; fawning hopefully at bullies with the aim of appeasing them.

“How’s the digs?”

“Good.” By which Arthur means warm, dry and cheap. Northing, apparently, happens in this country at this time of year. Florin’s team have scattered for the holiday, leaving Arthur to take up an offer of staying in the room over someone’s friend’s cousin’s barber’s shop for the fortnight.

The barber’s shop is isolated in an industrial estate and, while Arthur’s not yet seen any signs of trouble there, he can understand why the owner might have wanted someone to confirm its security while the estate lies mostly empty. It’s an emptiness that carries on, into the town itself unless right in the centre (or the supermarket, picking up supplies, as Arthur had been doing). Certainly the station’s mostly deserted.

As stations go, it’s a minor stopping point on a line that most trains simply surge past. A pair of freestanding walls bracket the outside of the platforms, each with a glass awning making a pretence of holding back the weather. It’s moderately well lit, has benches to sit on, and has – the key point for Arthur – a free parking area just off to one side.

Timothy, with his fascination for all things train related, might have been interested, so Arthur had sent Ginger a photo to pass along. As for Arthur? Takeaway cups and motorbikes not being compatible, he’d just been planning on finishing his drink sheltered from the chill, then starting his bike and heading back to the shop.

It’s empty, except for himself and the group.

He hadn’t expected to stumble across the situation unfurling in front of him. The youths’ voices are… mocking. But not loud enough to be heard over Andrei’s, “As Green seemed happy with the vans, I was thinking we could do a few more removals next year. Same conditions.”

Arthur grimaces, but murmurs, “Sure. Good idea.”

It had been work ‘off the books’. Having been on the far side of balancing an economy, it feels hypocritical to evade taxation, but the extra money will come in very useful over the next few weeks without pay and, compared to the massive numbers of the current world, three hundred quid in hand to help someone shift their life from one village to the next, doesn’t seem like much.

“Are you sure? You sound a bit off. If you’re struggling on your own… Or feeling trigger happy without my calming influence…” a laugh that’s more on edge than Arthur likes, “then you can always-”

The woman in the Albion said Arthur had made things worse for her. It’s hard to see how he can make things worse tonight, but he’d thought the same with Saph.

“I’m fine,” Arthur cuts off Andrei’s rambling. “I’ve got other option if needed.”

Raffi and Pedro had, surprisingly, asked if Arthur wanted to come and stay with them. They’d made the offer over the sounds of Pedro’s visiting mother playing with their baby. It hadn’t seemed right to intrude on Eliya’s first Yule (or Christmas).

“Well, now. That’s-”

One of the youths pushes the woman. She sways, but doesn’t fall. Doesn’t run either, unwilling to abandon her goods.

“Andrei. I have to go.”

“Oh.” He sounds startled.

Arthur would spend more time settling him, really he would, it’s just that things across the track appear to be escalating. He puts the lid back on his cup and places it carefully on the bench, next to his helmet and bag of shopping. “See you in January, yes?”

“Of course. Have a very-”

Pocketing the mobile, Arthur picks up his helmet. It’s the only thing he’s not willing to risk going missing.

The train tracks o this section aren’t electrified – only the cables overhead are – and so, unwilling to leave the scuffle to proceed unobserved, Arthur drops down onto the track. Too involved in their fun, the boys don’t notice him until he places his hand on the opposite platform and vaults up to their level.

“Man! That’s not safe!”

“Neither’s being a jerk.” Arthur pulls the case from the boy holding it, passes it handle-first to the woman and offers, “Shall we go?”

He’s… actually not expecting her to agree. Usually ladies hesitate, even if you have just saved them from a Cockatrice. But then, he must look awfully like the lesser of two evils right now. “Yes, let’s.” Her voice is soft; she sounds like one of the voices from the telly.

He’s also not expecting her to put her hand is his, but afterwards it seems best to just lead her to the exit. There’s no need to start a fight if the boys won’t, and they can wait at the café until just before her train is due.

“I’m Arthur,” he offers after they’ve descended the steps to the road’s level.

_Now_ she pulls away from him. “Arthur?”

And like that it falls into place. “You wait for someone.” ‘Else’ goes without saying.

She looks back, and one of the boys there chooses to yell at her.

“We can go to the café. Wait for your train.” Arthur lays out his plan. “Phone to your friend.”

She wavers. “I’m meant to wait.”

Up close, her face is very young. Morgana’s age when she arrived in Camelot, or Merlin’s. Arthur’s about to offer to return to the platform with its troublesome youths and wait with her, when she beats him to it, “The greasy spoon café?”

And, like that, it’s settled. Her hostage situation, at least, has been easy to resolve.

It’s his own that troubles Arthur.

*

Why _did_ the Sidhe heal him?

Because Merlin asked them to? Because a king was wounded? For destiny? It makes very little sense when one starts to think about it. For, quite simply, what’s in it for the Sidhe themselves?

What did they _want_?

He’s heard stories, of course. Though it’s important to be aware that the tales he’s heard come through the filter of his father’s hatred of magic. The Sidhe are not to be trusted. Apparently they wanted a Sidhe queen in the mortal world.

Why?

No one ever said. It was simply presented as a reasonable goal. Step one, marry a king; step two…?

What does anyone every get from having their kin wedded to the throne? What did Gwen’s people – common people – get? Representation. A certain type of influence, if not power. Potentially a much greater deal of influence over the next monarch; if an heir was born. If that heir survived infancy and didn’t find their claim challenged. If their rule was not overthrown.

But what does any of that have to do with the Sidhe worldview? What could the mortal world possibly grant them, that they – who have mastered death – cannot grant themselves?

And why look to Arthur for it? Maybe before his death, though it's not like he'd ever been especially approachable to the fay; nor could he be expected to become so upon waking. And, upon waking, what power he once held is now gone.

Even more than that, though, why would they care about a mortal king _at all_?

Unless-

_He did wait for you_ : words from an eternal lady. One hoping Arthur will (more to the point, _can_ ) save the most powerful warlock of his era.

Another person missing the point.

Avalon and his return: it was never about _Arthur_ at all.

*

“I’m Katie,” Katies says. She’s sitting up, very straight, in her chair. Her hands are laced around her mug of hot chocolate as if either frantic for heat, or possibly to use it as a weapon against Arthur.

There are dark smudges under her eyes. She doesn’t look like she’s slept well in a long time.

Arthur drinks his new cup of herbal tea and checks the time on his phone. The screen is hard to see for the glare of all the coloured lights reflecting through the café window, but he doesn’t want to be late getting her to her train. “Your friend is on a next train, yes?”

Katie shrugs. “Sure.”

Arthur’s beginning to get a bad feeling about this. “Sure?” he tries. “Or not sure?” The whole situation is starting to feel strangely familiar, he just can’t figure out what that familiarity is just yet.

“Sure,” and she nods, decisively, once.

She in absolutely no way bears any resemblance to Merlin. But there’s something in that conclusive nod… A refusal to accept reality, maybe.

“You’re running away.” Arthur figures out what’s so familiar. It’s not Merlin. But it is a common situation. “And you be waiting for your man.” _How_ many times has he seen marital prospects brought before the throne seeking ‘reason’?

“No!” At least her indignation isn’t faked. “Not like that, anyway.”

“So. You _are_ running away. And there _is_ a man.” Kidnap, slavery, dishonourable treatment – the likely outcomes flash through Arthur’s mind.

“You sound like my teacher.” Arthur’s so certain that he’s been told he’s acting like her dad (or uncle or brother – some concerned family member applying, to her young eyes, unreasonable constraint) that it takes hm a moment to realise that that’s not what she’s said at all.

“Teacher?”

She pulls a face, but doesn’t look like she’s going to cry. From the way she fiddles with a blue-white-pink braid around her wrist, it’s clear that she’s used to forcing down unpleasant thoughts. “I am not going back.”

Arthur allows himself just one heartbeat to close his eyes. He _really does not_ want to have to deal with a situation as complex as this right now. Surely he has enough to sort through? There’s a twenty minute drive through town traffic he’s still only just adjusting to, now he’s passed his motorbike test; he’s got to make a plan to balance work with searching out Merlin after the turn of the year; and there’s a possibility that his shopping won’t be where he left it when he gets back, if the boys (or anyone else) decides to resort to petty theft.

Then he opens his eyes. “Do you have a place to go?”

Katie leans back in her chair. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

Which is not what Arthur meant. “Do you trusting this man you meet?” Since waking up, Arthur has, admittedly, met up with and followed after, a whole host of strangers. However, while he might be of a height with Katie, there their similarities end. Arthur must outweigh her by a good half of her body mass and, more to the point, he’s a lot more familiar with fighting than any modern person he’s met.

She doesn’t say ‘no’, but she doesn’t say ‘yes’. While it’s unfortunate that she’s not certain of her safety, at least she’s not lying to herself about the matter. “Could you not stay with your teacher?”

Her expression is answer enough.

“It may not be safe.”

“Life’s not safe,” Katie drawls, with all the confidence of someone who’s yet to see the worst of the world. “Besides,” and here her face lights up, intoxicated with hope, “they can help. They’ll understand me.”

“Other can help. Without leaving. There are persons that can help your problem.” For, whatever’s going on with her family, throwing herself into the unknown world is hardly ideal.

“Oh, you think you know what my problem is, do you?” Yet for the first time her amusement seems genuine, if dark.

Trans-girl, assigned-male-at-birth, transsexual: Arthur’s not certain which of the words he’s seen in Ginger’s articles are the ones that he should be using. He _is_ absolutely certain he shouldn’t use the same ones the boys at the train station were shouting.

“It’s fine,” he offers.

Katie looks like she wants to hit him, proving that he’s still managed to find the wrong words. “Well _thank you_ for granting me permission to live my life.”

“Eh.” Once upon a time, she shouldn’t have been speaking those words sarcastically. These days she’s not wrong.

Arthur looks at his phone again. Still fifteen minutes. It feels like it’s going to be a long wait.

*

Once he acknowledged the fact that the whole ‘time of greatest need’ return-from-Avalon prophesy likely had very little to do with _him_ , Arthur found events entirely too easy to deconstruct: he was never the key to the game; that was all Merlin. So long as the Sidhe held him, then they could control Merlin. Could keep him waiting for as long as they needed to.

(Waiting for what purpose?)

Why ever had Merlin taken him to them?

‘Desperation’ was the obvious answer. Yet it leaves Arthur feeling like he's missing something. Why would Merlin be desperate to save _him_?

Oh, they were close. Arthur knows that. And people who are close to one another do rash things when faced with grief. He’s lived that rashness: has been the one who summoned a regicidal wizard to heal a magic-burning king.

But grief changes over time; mellows. Surely Merlin wouldn't have remained, fixated, for so long?

(And yet, for a moment, Arthur can see just that. Loyal, foolish Merlin, standing at a shore as night fades into day, and summer falls to winter, over and over again. He can almost _feel_ the look in Merlin's eyes.)

But if they kept Arthur as guarantee against Merlin’s… behaviour? magic? attack?... then why did the Sidhe _stop_ holding him?

_Merlin’s missing._

If the Sidhe, creatures willing to keep Arthur relatively whole and well through fifteen centuries of mortal change, have seen fit to release him _now_ of all times, then Arthur fears Merlin more than missing. He’s likely dead.

*

It’s a short walk back to the train station, but Katie’s nerves visibly ramp up with every step. Arthur would have thought her concerns centred around the boys there, but after their discussion it could as well be around her hopes for the man she wants to meet.

When they arrive, it’s obvious that something is wrong. For starters, the boys aren’t there anymore despite the fact that their train isn’t due for a few more minutes. Then there’s the fact that the information screens are blank. Katie cheerfully walks up the steps; Arthur follows, but his palm aches for Excalibur. Every instinct he has says that something’s amiss.

There’s no one on either platform. He can still see his bag and half-finished mint tea on the opposite platform. Pigeons coo from their roosts in the awning’s struts.

Light appears down the tracks; an oncoming train.

He can hear it perfectly; there are no sounds from the road.

“We should go.” Katie’s frown turns to an outraged shout when he grabs her elbow. “Now.”

She moves to throw him off, more coordinated than Arthur had expected, but still too focussed on breaking free rather than on hurting him enough that he’d actually let her go. He’s dragged her to the top of the steps when the train pulls in.

The doors open.

The noise of the gun shot is immense. However the pain Arthur feels thankfully seems to be accounted for by having fallen down the steps. Katie’s already staggering to her feet; the hand that had been trying to twist his grip from her, now being used to haul him to his feet.

They run; there’s no need to discuss that.

The road is empty; not a single piece of traffic on it. There’s a moment of confusion when Katie stops; presumably trying to get her bearings, but Arthur just carries on, pulling her to the left and-

A large black car roars up to them. Behind, Arthur can hear running boots on the stairs. He pulls Katie into the station carpark, less because he thinks that it’s a good avenue for escape, and more because there may be flats above the shops on the road; he doesn’t want potential innocents hurt.

He _really_ wants Excalibur. A _sharpened_ Excalibur. Also his crossbow.

He settles for scanning the ill lit area. Cars; a shoulder-high fence; one vehicle exit; trees to the north; buildings on the other two sides.

His motorbike? No, the ignition’s too slow.

The far fence? Maybe, if they can reach it before others enter the carpark and-

The car enters in a spray of loose gravel; Arthur drags Katie between two parked vehicles and ducks down. At least they won’t get run over.

“I’m so sorry,” Katie’s saying.

Arthur ignores her because the pursuit doesn’t seem like it can be linked to her but, even if it is, now is not the time for chatter. “Get under the car.”

“But-”

“Get under the car. Don’t come out.”

A door opens. Katie’s eyes are very wide; her face bloodless. But, slowly, thankfully, she obeys. Arthur pulls out his phone. The screen’s cracked; presumably in the fall. It doesn’t work properly when he tries to open the phone function, but he stands up holding it none-the-less. The door closes.

Standing, Arthur, turns to face the men from the car. There’re two of them. There are another two people – a man and a woman – in the carpark entrance. They dress alike in black, but only the two near the entrance hold guns. In the quick glance Arthur sends their way, the weapons look strange; as long as a farmer’s shotgun, but thinner.

“I’m speaking to the police.” He’s not.

“We are the police.”

“You don’t look like polices.” He’s seen (some) telly; this is nothing like that.

“Sir. Please step away.”

Keeping the phone in his hand, Arthur does. Slowly. Behind him, he can hear Katie scrambling around. Hopefully she’s not about to come out from safety.

“That’s good. Keep coming. The boy is dangerous. I know he doesn’t look like much, but appearances can be deceptive.”

Arthur already knows this. Some days it feels like nothing is as it seems. “Do I hang up?” He asks, as he keeps walking forward.

“You can stop there.”

“Do I hang up?” Arthur repeats, keeping up his pace forward steady, arms out of the sides and phone held up.

“Sir. Stop!”

“Do I-” But Arthur can see the man’s face scrunching, ready to shout. He throws himself forward, tackling the man to the ground.

There’s a moment of pure chaos; the talking man bucking underneath Arthur, while the car’s other passenger strikes at him. Rearing up, Arthur grabs for the second passenger, managing to drag him off balance, then over Arthur’s shoulders to the ground.

The first man uses the moment to try to take a swing at Arthur, but Arthur, half kneeling on his chest, is awkwardly angled for a hard impact even ignoring that the movement seems ill-coordinated. A returned strike leaves the man motionless and Arthur turns to the second passenger when-

He’s dragged. There’s something grabbing at the shoulders of his motorbike jacket and-

Something strikes at his head, though Arthur manages to get his arms up for protection; they’re hit instead. The two gunners: fortunately, unwilling to risk their colleagues with Arthur so close. _Unfortunately_ , apparently also armed with some sort of short stave.

Staggering to his feet, Arthur throws himself straight at the armed woman. Gallant or not, she’s shorter than him, and he needs a weapon if he’s going to last in the fray.

She proves to be a _big_ mistake. Really, Morgause would laugh. Ladies don’t offer battle unless they can _really_ offer battle. Arthur _thinks_ his forearm isn’t broken, but such blows aren’t meant to be blocked like that without a shield.

Movement in Arthur’s peripheral vision forces him back into close combat before the male gunner can separate him from the others enough to chance a shot. Arthur manages to get a choke hold on the second passenger, but the focus of holding him close gives the woman space to aim her stave at Arthur’s head and-

Everything explodes into fire.

Literal fire. The type that rushes searing heat at his skin and leaves him staggering back with his arm over his eyes.

Through the fire, Arthur sees a sight he’d not thought to ever see again. Eyes glowing gold.

Katie.

Arthur’s dimply aware of the black-clad soldiers shouting. Their weapons glow red, then sag, molten. Despite this, their shouts appear focussed, not panicked. They are, he realises, trying to coordinate a resumption of their attack.

Even as they do so, another car thunders into the parking lot. The door is flung open; a man looks out. “Kent’s Truant? I believe you called a lift?”

*

After Katie has left with her man, and the men in black have, for want of a better phrase, decided to give chaise, Arthur pats himself down, checking the extent of his injuries.

Magic.

Not just creatures, but sorcerers. So much for his father’s dreams having been achieved.

His arm throbs and Arthur’s not even willing to start thinking through the implications of the night just yet. Instead he walks around, collecting his things. As he does, he hears the traffic resume flowing.

His phone’s on the ground. This time it’s not so much cracked, as shattered. His helmet’s near the bottom of the steps, where they landed. There’s a split near the visor; Arthur’s going to have to replace that. His shopping, abandoned on the bench for the best part of an hour, ironically seems fine.

Opening and closing his left hand a few times, Arthur decides that he’d better see how the limb feels before trying to ride the bike home. Hopefully there’s not another break for a future X-ray scan to reveal.

He sits down to finish now very cold mint tea and to (start to) gather his thoughts.

Katie hadn’t been wrong; he hadn’t understood her problem at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Never, ever, ever walk on train tracks. Just don’t.


End file.
